I know nothing of the details/mechanics of getting a plant patent, but given that Whiskey Mac is a known rose with some popularity behind I agree that a color sport of it (and a fragrance sport, too? Interesting!) might indeed have a market out there.

I believe it is possible to patent a sport. There is an azalea hybrid on the market named "Girard Rose". There is also a variegated leaf sport of it, and I am fairly sure that back in the 1980's (when I was working in an azalea production nursery) the variegated sport was also patented.

Here's some info. Yes you can patent a sport.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to patent a plant

At the very least, your friend can name his sport and register it with the ARS. This is what a friend of mine did a few years ago (Hers is Klassy Lady, a pink sport of Miss Flippins.) I doubt there will be interest from the major growers -- they rarely give the time of day to an amateur. Your friend can approach some of the independent nurseries to see if they'd be interested in carrying his rose (that's what my friend did with her sport ... you can buy it at Almost Heaven Roses.).

Pictures? We love pictures. :)

Connie

The saturated yellow and strong fragrance of your friend's sport are also very descriptive of 'Dr A.J. Verhage', the pollen parent of 'Whisky Mac'.

Tantau used an unregistered seedling as the pod parent, so we've no way of knowing what characteristics that rose may have contributed to 'Whisky Mac'.

Seems like a very fragrant solid bright yellow hybrid tea with average HT cultural qualities should have substantial commercial potential. There are few if any such roses in existence.

Patenting plants is apparently an onerous and rather expensive process, such that the great Ralph Moore (as far as I can tell) stopped patenting his new varieties and just claimed in his catalog that he had applied for patents.

If the sport proves stable, perhaps he could offer to sell the right to patent to one of the big firms, probably for not very much money. Registering it with ARS is fairly simple and would connect his name with the rose should it have a future. I think if it were propagated and sold by one of the boutique nurseries before applying for patent, this would make patenting impossible.

trospero is the person here who would know a lot about the possibilities.

Selling the rose to a major distributor os a good way to never see the rose appear in commerce. Case in point, the orange It's Showbiz which Ralph Moore sold to one of the majors, and does Wayside still offer Moore's spectacular climber Shadow Dancer?

I believe a poster on this forum sold the rights to a stabilized striped sport of Mary Rose to David Austin Roses. This was some years ago, so I would think the striped Mary would have appeared in commerce by now.

If I had a commercially viable sport, I think I might just start selling it locally. I believe documenting a plant's origin can prevent someone else from patenting your rose.

Nastarana wrote, "Selling the rose to a major distributor is a good way to never see the rose appear in commerce."

Could be, but the original question was about making money from the sport.

Incidentally, Certified Roses propagates and sells some unpatented new roses as well as out-of-patent roses. It sounds like this rose-- if it should prove viable-- is the sort of thing that would sell in garden center displays.

Canes sporting solid yellow roses on Whisky Mac may not be a common occurrence, but it's not necessarily rare either, is it? I know for sure that it's not unheard of.

"Selling the rose to a major distributor os a good way to never see the rose appear in commerce. Case in point, the orange It's Showbiz which Ralph Moore sold to one of the majors"

And do you know why that happened? It wasn't because Spring Hill Nursery had no interest in the rose, its because they filed bankruptcy before they could get the rose to market. Someone bought up the company and its assets many years later and they are no longer focused on rose production, but the rose is still one of their assets. It was circumstance, not malicious intent that led to that rose becoming obscure. You can't assume that this will happen based on one or two cases. Did it occur to you that the striped 'Mary Rose' had to be field tested before they could sell it? Its always possible that the sport was unstable, as was a previous striped 'Mary Rose' sport, which was later pulled from commerce.

Several breeders I know, such as Jim Sproul and Frank Benardella sell their varieties to companies like Nor'East every year and their roses make it into commerce without any trouble. One or two cases don't mean its a bad idea to sell a worthwhile sport to a large company. To be honest, its my opinion that the best way to insure it going into production is to sell it to one of the "big boys".

Sports are patented all the time, but I can attest to the fact that most patented sports end up in the dustheap of rose history and do not survive. I only ran across this by accident, checking rose patents. Many, many sport were patented and the overwhelming majority of them are no longer in commerce. I don't know if it's because they aren't stable in the end or because they aren't different enough from the original. Or maybe sports are in some way inferior to the original. All I know is that most are long gone.

I concluded that most sport patents are a waste of money.

Berndoodle's point that *most patented sports end up in the dustheap of rose history and do not survive* is probably quite accurate. There are instances, however, where the sport survives in commerce, and the parent variety is long gone -- lost to commerce and relegated to the *dustheap*.

Actually, that's not accurate. Most sports end up in the dustheap of rose history and do not survive long before they get patented.

What's not accurate, amanda? As I said, berndoodle's comment is probably QUITE accurate. However, the fact remains, amanda, that there ARE instances where the sport continues to be commercially viable and the original variety is long gone.

I just checked the Modern Roses 12 database and there are already quite a few medium or deep yellow sports of Whisky Mac in existence. Whether any of them are still in commerce is another question. However, I think you would have a difficult time proving yours is different enough to get a patent or register the rose with the ARS. It sounds like the one closest to yours is Tanya Kim.

However, this doesn't mean the rose couldn't be a commercial success. I have a friend who takes most of his sports to Weeks. They are currently selling two of them and both are doing quite well. He gets a royalty on every bush sold. Since Weeks doesn't sell at retail, but only wholesale, they aren't so married to just selling their own creations. I think it would be worth contacting Weeks to see what they say.

I'm saying most get dumped before they get patented. That's my point. Name me one variety where the sport continues to be sold and the original is dropped.

I would take trospero's advice. It would be worth a try, in my opinion. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Sandy

OK, Amanda, I'll be glad to name you one . . . Actually, this issue was discussed here quite a long time ago. A very few examples were given by various individuals, but I now can remember only the example I contributed -- namely, the HT 'Nantucket' which is a sport of 'Chantre' (a Kordes introduction).

'Nantucket' has been available for years from at least three sources -- as an own-root from Vintage and as a grafted plant from 2 Canadian suppliers. OTOH, Chantre appears to be available NOWHERE on the planet. Moreover, one can't even find a photo of it.

'Nantucket' is a good rose for me & has been for years, so I would expect its sport parent to be worth growing. I've been curious about 'Chantre' because it was also the seed parent of two others that I'm fond of -- 'Oldtimer' and the difficult 'Vienna Charm'.

If anyone is familiar with 'Chantre' and has an opinion about why it seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, I'd be interested in hearing about it. In a way, though, it lives on through its lovely sport.

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Nantucket'

Jaxon, I remember the thread you refer to. I seem to recall that several of the examples cited were CLIMBING sports that either performed better than the original bush, or remained in commerce long after the original had disappeared. I've searched for that thread in the archives but can't find it. I was interested in seeing if any OGRs were included among the examples.

Windeaux, I don't remember if any OGRs were mentioned, but I think you're right about climbers.

One that might have been included is 'Climbing Caledonia'. A citation at HMF assigns its HT sport parent to the list of extinct roses.

Hello everybody (specially JAXONDEL)!
My name is Mariano R. Saviello, I am 25 years old and I have recently got my degree in Biotechnology in the National University of Quilmes (Buenos Aires, Argentina). I am also working in a Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology in the same University doing a research in Microbiology that will be part of my thesis, when I get my master in Biotechnology in a few months. Anyway, I am plannig to start to work in another laboratory; maybe in something related with Vegetal Biotechnology, so I am really excited about this. Maybe you are not interested in this things I have started to write, but I thought it would be good if you know something about me because it is my first message here, so you know who is writting to you.
Since I was a little child I love all kind of plants, but roses are my favourite. It is true that they need many special cares, some attention and a lot of love; but this support is always proportional with the happyness they give us in their flowering time! All the time and effort we invest is well worth!. So, I have started to grow them since then.
My grandfather Nilo Sánchez was also a rose grower and used to have a huge collection of roses in Necochea, a seaside town almost 500 kilometres from Buenos Aires, where we have a house in which we spend every summer harvesting cherries, plums, apricots and pears. Activity shared by many members of my family. At the moment the-in that time- huge rose collection is not what it was; but we could keep some really interesting varieties, including some old relics, really difficult to find nowadays here in Argentina ´s nurseries, although it is a pity we could not invest much time in the house because it is really far away from where I am living now (Buenos Aires). It is my hobbie and a really healthy way to spend my free time, and switch my mind off the daily routine.
Some years ago or a bit more, maybe-I read about the ´Help Me Find´ website, and posted some pictures too, but could not dedicate too much time because I was studying hard to get my degree; so I used the site just to learn more things about this plant and identify some of our rose bushes. Nowadays, with more free time, I am trying to recover my grandfather ´s rose collection, and have been buying many rose bushes to fill the empty spaces of the garden (I plant each variety in the place it used to be when my grandfa was young, according to what he have told me). Everything has changed a lot and we are having now a really colourful space each spring, but we still have to recover some cultivars such as ´Charles Mallerin´, ´Yellow Talismán´, ´Tzigane´, ´Rina Herholdt´, ´Frau Kart Druschky´, ´Salmon Ange´, ´Ballet´, ´Eden Rose´, ´Crimson Glory´, ´Forty-Niner´, ´Mojave, ´President Hoover´, ´Caledonia´, ´Rumba´, ´Kordes Perfecta Superior´ and, of course CHANTRÉ ROSE.
The aim of this e-mail, after reading in the ´Garden Web Forum´ that JAXONDEL said once (20, April 2009): "one can't even find a photo of it", in reference to the ´Chantré´ rose, that-in your own words- "appears to be available NOWHERE on the planet", is sending the link of the ´Chantré´ rose page in Help Me Find to all of the rose lovers who share this space, where I have recently uploaded three pictures of this magnific cultivar, property of a friend of mine.
Hope one day I could grow this beauty, in order to keep walking with the rose conservation project I have started with my grandfather many years ago to re-introduce forgotten-and amost extinguised- "old" modern roses.
Of course I am at your entire disposal, hoping you all enjoy these pictures.

Yours sincerely, Mariano Saviello (mariano_saviello83@yahoo.com.ar)

PS.: Here is the link: http://www.helpmefind.com/plant/pl.php?n=11548. If someone could contact JAXONDEL privately, please send him this message (I am new on it and do not know how to get through to him...is there any "private message" option???). Once more, my warmest regards from Buenos Aires!

Hello everybody (specially JAXONDEL)!
My name is Mariano R. Saviello, I am 25 years old and I have recently got my degree in Biotechnology in the National University of Quilmes (Buenos Aires, Argentina). I am also working in a Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology in the same University doing a research in Microbiology that will be part of my thesis, when I get my master in Biotechnology in a few months. Anyway, I am plannig to start to work in another laboratory; maybe in something related with Vegetal Biotechnology, so I am really excited about this. Maybe you are not interested in this things I have started to write, but I thought it would be good if you know something about me because it is my first message here, so you know who is writting to you.
Since I was a little child I love all kind of plants, but roses are my favourite. It is true that they need many special cares, some attention and a lot of love; but this support is always proportional with the happyness they give us in their flowering time! All the time and effort we invest is well worth!. So, I have started to grow them since then.
My grandfather Nilo Sánchez was also a rose grower and used to have a huge collection of roses in Necochea, a seaside town almost 500 kilometres from Buenos Aires, where we have a house in which we spend every summer harvesting cherries, plums, apricots and pears. Activity shared by many members of my family. At the moment the-in that time- huge rose collection is not what it was; but we could keep some really interesting varieties, including some old relics, really difficult to find nowadays here in Argentina ´s nurseries, although it is a pity we could not invest much time in the house because it is really far away from where I am living now (Buenos Aires). It is my hobbie and a really healthy way to spend my free time, and switch my mind off the daily routine.
Some years ago or a bit more, maybe-I read about the ´Help Me Find´ website, and posted some pictures too, but could not dedicate too much time because I was studying hard to get my degree; so I used the site just to learn more things about this plant and identify some of our rose bushes. Nowadays, with more free time, I am trying to recover my grandfather ´s rose collection, and have been buying many rose bushes to fill the empty spaces of the garden (I plant each variety in the place it used to be when my grandfa was young, according to what he have told me). Everything has changed a lot and we are having now a really colourful space each spring, but we still have to recover some cultivars such as ´Charles Mallerin´, ´Yellow Talismán´, ´Tzigane´, ´Rina Herholdt´, ´Frau Kart Druschky´, ´Salmon Ange´, ´Ballet´, ´Eden Rose´, ´Crimson Glory´, ´Forty-Niner´, ´Mojave, ´President Hoover´, ´Caledonia´, ´Rumba´, ´Kordes Perfecta Superior´ and, of course CHANTRÉ ROSE.
The aim of this e-mail, after reading in the ´Garden Web Forum´ that JAXONDEL said once (20, April 2009): "one can't even find a photo of it", in reference to the ´Chantré´ rose, that-in your own words- "appears to be available NOWHERE on the planet", is sending the link of the ´Chantré´ rose page in Help Me Find to all of the rose lovers who share this space, where I have recently uploaded three pictures of this magnific cultivar, property of a friend of mine.
Hope one day I could grow this beauty, in order to keep walking with the rose conservation project I have started with my grandfather many years ago to re-introduce forgotten-and amost extinguised- "old" modern roses.
Of course I am at your entire disposal, hoping you all enjoy these pictures.
Yours sincerely, Mariano Saviello (mariano_saviello83@yahoo.com.ar)

Here is the link: http://www.helpmefind.com/plant/pl.php?n=11548. If someone could contact JAXONDEL privately, please send him this message (I am new on it and do not know how to get through to him...is there any "private message" option???). Once more, my warmest regards from Buenos Aires!

I just saw your pictures of Chantre at HMF. Beautiful rose and excellent photography by you. I wish you every success on the project of restoring your grandfather's rose garden.

That someone has reported Chantre and shared it is a good way to begin this morning, my first after four days of not being able to access GardenWeb. (Computer reset something that blocked GW and Rotten Tomatoes)

One thing before even thinking of patenting a sport: it needs to be grown through three generations (budded, grafted, own root reproductions...doesn't matter) and stil be true to the original description.

Plant Patent #1 was for New Dawn, the repeat blooming sport of Dr. W. van Fleet. Just for remembrance.

THANK YOU very much for your comments and wishes. It is a pleasure for me sharing this magnific rose with all of you.
Hope JAXONDEL could also see this post.
We keep in touch, Mariano.

Nanito!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I was thrilled to see your post and, at last, to see photos of the elusive Chantre. It was only this morning as I was snipping spent blooms off 'Nantucket' that I wondered again about 'Chantre', & if a photo of that rose would ever surface . . .

It was fascinating to read the story of your grandfather and his garden. Your efforts to restore his collection of roses is a wonderful way to honor him. Please keep us posted on the project, and let us know if you have difficulty in locating any of the varieties that you're searching for.

Again, many thanks.

Good to read that you Jaxondel could finally see a picture of ´Chantré´rose and that you all could enjoy it for the first time.
Of course, as you could imagine, it is turning really difficult for me to recover some of the roses that my grandfa used to grow many years ago. By the way he is still alive with 85 years old, and very proud of all the effort I am doing to recover every rose. I think he was the most happy person I have ever seen when he saw the pictures of ´Chantré´rose after more than 50 years!!!.

Our last acquisitions included roses such as ´Kronenbourg´, ´Kordes Perfecta´, ´Isabel de Ortíz´, ´Camelot´, ´Red Radiance´, ´Pink Radiance´ and three more unknow varieties that I could not identified yet (and I am looking into the ID section of this forum to upload some pictures); but I am still looking for cultivars such as ´Dr. Debat´, ´Yellow Talismán´,´Frau Kart Druschky´,´Ballet´, ´Eden Rose´, ´Forty-Niner´, ´Mojave, ´President Hoover´, ´Caledonia´, ´Rumba´, ´Buccaneer´, ´Baccarrá´, ´Chrysler Imperial´, ´Comtesse Vandal´, ´Safrano´, ´Rose Gaujard´or´Kordes Perfecta Superior´.

What is more, all of these varieties are not available here in Argentina and I was checking them out in sites such "Vintage Gardens" and similars but it extremely expensive to buy small plants outside (taking into account the monetary conversion), so once I have found most of them I had to deal with this limitation. An example was my aim to buy ´Dr. Debat´ from "Vintage Gardens", taking into account the conversion mentioned, a simple plant of ´Dr. Debat´ rose was, just to give you and idea, what for you would be paying 180 dollars for a rose bush (of course it was imposible for me, almost a 20% of my salary!haha).

It was really a pity because ´Dr. Debat´ is my grandfather ´s favourite rose and I have not found other way to get this plant yet. Getting some cuttings would be another option, but not everybody want to share what they have, or start putting a lot of limiations and, of course, once you get them you have to be really lucky not to let them die.

As you could imagine, a really difficult task at all; so if anyone could some day contribute just by giving any idea or whaterver I let you my private e-mail: mariano_saviello83@yahoo.com.ar.
Needless to say I (and my grandfather) will be extremely grateful!.

Well it is really late here and I must work tomorrow. Hope I could keep in touch with all of you in this nice space and, as always, my warmest regards from B.A.

Mariano