United States Patent and Trademark Office
Project: RQ017
Subject: A01H 5/00
Date: July 2, 2015
US thanks BR for posting revision proposal of A01H5/00. US supports launching
revision project of A01H5/00.
Revision of A01H5/00 scheme is needed in order to better represent the classification of
flowering plants. US points out that the current A01H5/00 classification scheme has
several problems and would like to include more breakdowns for plant categories. The
current scheme is subjective in its breakdown of flowering plants by their parts (i.e.
flowers, stems, roots, fruits, seeds, leaves). Due to this subjectivity, the scheme lacks
clarity and is open to overlap.
US agrees with BR comments that “development is usually more related to the family of
the plant rather than the part of the plant.” US wishes to classify flowering plants based
on plant family.
The problem with the current A01H5/00 breakdown is that all flowering plants
(angiosperms) comprise each of the following botanical structures: flowers, stems, roots,
fruits, seeds, leaves. Therefore, categorizing a flowering plant by these botanical
structures will cause overlap, confusion, and no logical or uniform hierarchy. As all
flowering plants can be categorized into each and every one of the current A01H5/00
breakdowns, therefore the current system is not helpful, and instead promotes confusion
and overlap.
To highlight some of the current problems with A01H5/00, US provides the following
examples:
Sunflower:
The economically important part of some sunflower varieties is the seed and for others is
the flower. Further, a given application may include both the seeds and the flowers as the
economically important features of a particular variety. Therefore sunflower plants would
be subject to overlap and confusion.
Brassica oleraceae:
This includes (1) broccoli and cauliflower, where we eat the flowers
(2) kale, where we eat the leaves
(3) kohlrabi, where we eat the stem
Thus, this flowering plant would be subject to overlap and confusion.
Potato:
While most would think the economically important part is a root, botanically the potato
portion it is actually a stem. If an application drawn to a new potato variety and a new
method of making potato chips were examined in the food groups first, the patent issuing
from this would be classified by the food examiners as a root. The food examiners are not
botanists, and would not know the potatoes we eat are stems, not roots; thus, they would
misclassify it in A01H5/06 Roots, instead of where it would belong, A01H 5/04 Stems.
Hence, these multiple areas of overlap as described in the above examples above could
potentially lead to confusion and misclassification in the current A01H scheme. U.S.
believes that a scheme based on plant taxonomy alone will resolve these issues.
Classification of plants according to a scheme based on taxonomy: family, genus, and
species will be specific to the taxonomic family and selective for a specific plant rather
than subjective.
US has provided a scheme proposal in Annex 3 for consideration. This scheme uses
plant taxonomy for classification of plants.
L.K. Myers
J.Kravets