A plant patent is good for 20 years, measured from the date the application was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The clock starts on the filing date, not the day the patent is granted, so any time the USPTO spends examining the application counts against the 20 years.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 35 U.S. Code 154 – Contents and Term of Patent; Provisional Rights When the term ends, the variety enters the public domain and anyone can propagate it.
How the 20-Year Clock Is Calculated
The term comes from 35 U.S.C. 154, the same statute that sets duration for utility patents. It runs from the earliest U.S. filing date of the application. If your application claims the benefit of an earlier-filed application, the 20 years run from that earlier date instead.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 35 U.S. Code 154 – Contents and Term of Patent; Provisional Rights
The practical effect matters. USPTO examination can take a couple of years. File on January 1, 2026, and if the patent doesn’t issue until March 2028, over two years of the term have already elapsed before you have an enforceable patent. Your rights begin at grant, but the expiration date was fixed at filing.
Extra Days for USPTO Delays
If the USPTO takes too long, you may get days added back to the end of the term. This is called Patent Term Adjustment, and it applies to plant patents as well as utility patents.2United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patent Term Adjustment PTA compensates day-for-day when the office misses certain deadlines, such as failing to issue a first office action within 14 months of filing, or taking more than three years total to grant the patent. Any adjustment is calculated at issuance and shifts the expiration date accordingly.
Patents Filed Before June 8, 1995
The 20-year-from-filing rule took effect on June 8, 1995, under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. A patent that was still in force on that date, or that resulted from an application filed before it, gets the longer of two calculations: 20 years from filing or 17 years from the grant date.3United States Patent and Trademark Office. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure – Section 2701 – Patent Term In practice, nearly all plant patents filed before 1995 have already expired under either calculation.
No Maintenance Fees to Keep It Alive
Unlike utility patents, plant patents require no maintenance fees. A utility patent needs three rounds of fees at roughly 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after grant to stay in force, and missing one causes the patent to lapse. A plant patent stays active for the full 20-year term with no additional payments.4United States Patent and Trademark Office. Maintain Your Patent
This is codified in 37 C.F.R. 1.362(b), which states that maintenance fees are not required for plant patents or design patents.5United States Patent and Trademark Office. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure – Section 2504 – Patents Subject to Maintenance Fees The only way a plant patent’s life shortens is if the term itself runs out.
When the Term Ends
Once 20 years pass from the filing date, the variety enters the public domain. Anyone can asexually reproduce, sell, and distribute the plant without permission or royalties.6United States Patent and Trademark Office. General Information About 35 U.S.C. 161 Plant Patents There is no renewal process, and there is no way to extend the term beyond whatever Patent Term Adjustment was already calculated at issuance.
That is by design. The patent system trades a fixed period of exclusivity for public disclosure. After the term ends, other growers and breeders gain full access to propagate the variety commercially and to use its genetic material for developing new cultivars. Many ornamental and fruit varieties available freely today were once patent-protected and have simply run their course.
Plant Variety Protection Certificates Use a Different Clock
If you are comparing options, note that Plant Variety Protection certificates issued by the USDA operate on a different timeline than USPTO plant patents. A PVP certificate lasts 20 years from its issue date for most crops and 25 years for trees and vines.7United States Department of Agriculture. Certificate Issuance and Post-Issuance Information for Plant Variety Protection PVP terms run from issuance, not filing, so examination time does not eat into the term the way it does with a plant patent. The two systems also cover different kinds of reproduction and are not interchangeable for term-planning purposes.