The legal issue is with both of them.
Possessing a patented plant without paying the patent owner is patent infringement and is illegal.
Are you an employee or legal representative of NY AG?
That would be true if they can prove z0r knew about it before purchasing it. If you buy something stolen from e-bay are you guilty? No, all you did was make a purchase. You had no idea.
Now as far as him further possessing it I donāt know. Itās the nurseries that pay that royalty and they pass it to you in the price. In the end if a nursery is selling these trees, there are bigger problems than z0r.
The issue is not whether he knew about it. The issue is whether he should have known about it, and he should have. If it were to go to trial he would lose on that issue. But it wouldnāt go to trial anyone. He would wind up paying a fine and damages if the patent owners pushed it.
Iām continuing because I love a good debate, nothing personal. So you are saying when looking at e-bay it is your job to know if the item is stolen? It was never z0rās job to know if the nursery had paid the royalty or not. He just bought a tree. Your average person doesnāt even know about those things. Each state is different and you may be right, but I just donāt see anyone tracking z0r down to press charges over what is most likely a dollar royalty.
Patents are Federal jurisdiction only. Per Cornell Law, āUnless permitted by the patent owner, one commits patent infringement by making, using, offering to sell, or selling something that contains every element of a patented claim or its equivalent while the patent is in effect.ā I assuming āgrowingā a patented plant counts as āusingā it, but I donāt feel like checking.
Itās an interesting topic. We almost need another thread for it. Think about it, any of us could have bought that tree.
No, I did not say that when looking at e-bay it is your job to know if the item is stolen.
Misrepresenting what I said and replacing it with a completely inapplicable example is not actually the way to engage in debate.
Once again:
āThe issue is not whether he knew about it. The issue is whether he should have known about it, and he should have. If it were to go to trial he would lose on that issue. But it wouldnāt go to trial anyone. He would wind up paying a fine and damages if the patent owners pushed it.ā
Anyone who searches out SnapDragon wood with the intention of grafting it either does know itās patented or should know itās patented. No average Joe Gardener searches dozens of web sites trying to find a recently introduced fruit tree without running into at least one article that mentions that itās patented. Almost every recently introduced fruit with a heavy marketing campaign is patented anyway. And patent fees should always be listed separately by a nursery so the buyer always knows if the fee has been paid.
This has nothing to do with state law. This is controlled by federal law.
And yes, some patent owners will track people down and sue them because itās not about the money they lost to one buyer. Itās about giving buyers warnings and shutting down nurseries.
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Iām bowing out. Other people carry the apple, so I donāt know how the consumer would know the nursery was not licensed to sell it. Iām not saying your wrong, Iām saying itās not right morally. Sounds like anyone you hate, just send them some snapdragon and call the cops. Thatās over stated, but think of all the people that bought that. Most of those people had no clue of the apples situation, it just sounded like a good apple. They had no idea they had to run a background check on the company and the apple. If you can be convicted without any ill intent to break the law we have a problem in this country.
Anyone that disagrees is getting snapdragon in the mail.
I am interested in what the license fees and royalties are for home growers. Usually for most apples similar to Snapdragon the fees are structured for large scale growers. Are you saying I could actually buy a snapdragon tree by paying the royalty fee since I wouldnāt actually sell the apples? Your website doesnāt include a schedule for fees and royalties.
It looked like you need to be a New York state farmer to be allowed to join and arenāt going to be able to legally buy a tree unless your order is 100+ (and again, youāre located in New York). Seemed a little cartel-like to me.
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Itās just another club apple, which is restricted to NY State growers only. I think some of the other states have similar restrictions on some of their state-bred club apples. These days nearly all the new apples seem to be in one of the clubs so itās basically the industry standard now.
Alas.
I guess one silver lining for me is none of them excites me much at all, the flavor just isnāt there. They do tend to get very good grades for looks and crunchiness though.
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Have you had Lucy Glo or a good Opal?
Not Lucy Glo but I did have an Opal. Nothing memorable. I had a new one recently that wasnāt bad at all. Not good enough to remember the name though.
Scott, Iāve had many Opal that were sublime, and some that are okay or better. The hit rate is much better than most, but I suspect supply chain/timing of the apples you had rather than difference in palate, for your lack of enthusiasm for Opal.
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I looked up Opal and that is the one that I tried recently which wasnāt bad at all. Iād go for seconds on it. The one I had thought was Opal above was a red apple so not Opal.
Skillcult reviewed Lucy Glo in a video and was not impressed with the samples he had.
Oh, Iāll look for that video from Skillcult.
I first had Lucy Glo from an ugly box of āfield runā apples from a produce grocer and thought it was significantly better than Hidden Rose, which was my previous favorite red-fleshed.
edit: looks like the apples he tasted were old and beaten up. He said there was off-putting banana flavor and texture below average. Those werenāt the case for the ones I enjoyed.
Crunchtime/ NY AG was set up to market apples developed by the Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station.
From the Cornell AES website:
"The $6 million project portfolio managed by Cornell AES provides vital support for a broad base of critically important research that addresses local, state and national priorities ā from agricultural crop and pest management to community and economic vitality.
Each land-grant university across the United States, including Cornell, receives these funds as an annual allocation from the U.S. Department of Agricultureās National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)."
It would be one thing if these apples were developed with private funds and then treated as protected IP/trademark. However, they are basically taking taxpayer money, developing a product to sell and then restricting the sale of that product for their own benefit, and excluding the people who paid for the research from access unless they pay more.
*edited to be a little less spicy
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An apple to be paid for by the the people, for the people, but not distributed to the people.
In all seriousness, this is where fruit growing + politics slams into the rules of this forum preventing further discussion. Iād love to continue it further as it is a very relevant topic but Iām confident the comments Iād make would be flagged and removed.
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There isnāt a specific fee structure for home growers, it would be the same as for a direct market grower. There is a $1,000 fee to join the LLC - if in NY - or to become a sub-licensee if you are outside of NY. Then there is a tree royalty $1.25/tree and an acreage fee for $875/acre. Starting in year 3, there is a fruit royalty of $250/acre for non-commercial growers, which goes to $500/acre in year 4. The fees are high to prevent people from planting just a few trees. Regardless of the size of the orchard, the trees have to be tracked as part of the licensing agreement with Cornell. Feel free to email me at jessica@crunchtimeapplegrowers.com if you have additional questions.