In response to Jim Shields comments: Jim, I'm not a lawyer either - I guess it's very apparent. When I wrote that post, I was thinking of the rights to cultivars as if they were copyright rights. My understanding of copyright for print materials is that - please excuse the clumsy phrasing - the process of creating a work eligible for copyright and the existence of the copyright are coeval. In other words, copyright for a work does not exist as a result of registering the work for copyright, it's always there, so-to-speak. The formal registration process simply makes it easier for the lawyers to do their stuff. You mentioned patents: I suppose the underlying philosophy for that process if very different. With regard to plant patents, I've often wondered what, at a very practical level, is being patented. From a functional point of view, it often seems that it's the name of the cultivar which is being patented. If someone wants to sell the same plant under a different name, what's to stop them? Does the technology exist to conclusively say that any two plant entities are identical? For all we hear about DNA testing in the media, does such technology exist for humans? I don't think so. I'm reminded of the fuss raised by studies which purportedly linked Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Those in favor of the Jefferson-Hemings liaison insisted that the DNA tests proved that it happened. Those opposed still say that the only thing the DNA tests show is that a Jefferson male (in other words, not necessarily Thomas) was involved. Can we do any better with plants? Jim McKenney