Pledging variety?

[esoteric_agriculture]

Hello!
Apologies if this is the wrong place for this. I would like to pledge some varieties I’ve developed. I have filled out the online forms, maybe a few weeks ago, and haven’t heard anything back yet. Am I doing something wrong? Is it better to use the mailed forms? Is there anything I can do to help the process? Thanks in advance for any help.
👍🏻😁

[Garrett Schantz]

I would contact the support found on this page. https://osseeds.org/pledge-a-variety-to-ossi/
 It has guidelines for how to make the pledge and everything.

[William S.]

I went through through / am going through the pledging process. It took some time = months and I don't have final answers on everything. Though the first of the three Exserted Orange Tomato is live on EFN's website!

[nathanp]

It will probably be important to have the variety available to be purchased somewhere.  If you do not sell directly, you may need to approach a seed seller about listing it for sale. 

[Andrew Barney]

It will probably be important to have the variety available to be purchased somewhere.  If you do not sell directly, you may need to approach a seed seller about listing it for sale.

Yes,  I believe it just takes time.  And be prepared to send them 100 or more seed samples to grow out and evaluate as a reference point.

But as Nathan has hinted at, the OSSI has not yet started a store front where seeds pledged can always be available for others in perpetuity. This means simply pledging a variety as open source does not guarantee that others have adequate access to it or that it will not be extinct in a year from now if you stop growing it (or have a total crop failure).

[esoteric_agriculture]

Thanks to everyone who has replied. This is definitely helpful. I have options to sell seed. I was trying to figure out I guess whether I should pledge the varieties first and then sell them? I was concerned that if I sold them before pledging that would be an issue but apparently it won’t be so I will just go that route thanks for your help.

[William S.]

They haven't asked me for a seed sample yet it hasn't remotely come up.

[reed]

A good while back, over a year I think, I was talking with Carol about maybe pledging some seeds but after losing touch with her I have kind of lost interest in the whole process and thinking of taking a whole different approach. Bill is the only other one that I believe is associated with the OSSI administration that has ever had much interest in the forum at least that I'm aware of. You might try contacting him.

[bill]

I am a member of the variety revew committee and would be happy to help anyone get their variety pledged, but it is best to email me at bill@cultivariable.com.

[Nicollas]

Why do we even need a commity to accept to pledge varities or not ? We dont need another cathedral we need a bazaar !

[bill]

You can declare your varieties open source without pledging; they just won't be OSSI open source.  The OSSI requires official acceptance of varieties in order to ensure that they are defensible.  We take a breeding history, determine that real breeding has been done and that there were not patented or protected varieties in the background of the variety, and document it on the website.  It is a higher standard than simply public domain or open source.  Without review, we would have a big mess of undefensible varieties and, if OSSI varieties were widely regarded as indefensible, then there would be nothing to stop people from using them in patented/protected breeding work.

[William S.]

I am a little uncertain about where the three I am pledging are in the process. Just emailed Bill at the address above.

I hope to keep pledging material to OSSI and going through the process may be a learning process.

[Andrew Barney]

You can declare your varieties open source without pledging; they just won't be OSSI open source.  The OSSI requires official acceptance of varieties in order to ensure that they are defensible.  We take a breeding history, determine that real breeding has been done and that there were not patented or protected varieties in the background of the variety, and document it on the website.  It is a higher standard than simply public domain or open source.  Without review, we would have a big mess of undefensible varieties and, if OSSI varieties were widely regarded as indefensible, then there would be nothing to stop people from using them in patented/protected breeding work.

I understand the desire to avoid patented or protected varieties use in breeding, but i am under the impression that there is no legal restriction to use them as breeding stock as the protection (at least for limited protection maybe) is that it only applies to the exact variety, not the genetic traits if recombined into a distinct pedigree that can be shown to be different enough. I understand it could still be a mess in court if someone came after you, but i don't think it is technically illegal in any way.

[Nicollas]

I think that you can breed from a PVP, but not from a patented variety

[bill]

You may or may not be able to breed with a patented variety, depending on the type of patent and the license offered by the patent holder.  A standard utility patent on a variety forbids breeding with it.  A utility patent on a trait may forbid recreation of that trait even from other genetic sources, although that is not something that we generally consider.  You can breed from a PVP, unless what you breed from it is "essentially derived," which is generally considered to include sports.  And systems outside of US law vary in their details.  Also, varieties are increasingly bag-tagged or come with a separate contract that can specify almost any restriction that is valid under contract law.

So, we have to take some care in evaluating new varieties.  Overall though, the more common problem is that people submit varieties that don't involve a clear case of breeding.  For example, growing a variety for multiple generations for local adaptation without ever intentionally crossing it.  When there was an intentional cross and the phenotypic change is evident, it is a lot easier to make the case for breeding than when the phenotypic change is small and likely within the normal range of expression for a given variety.

Increasingly, people are breeding from OSSI pledged varieties, which makes all the progeny automatically OSSI pledged.  That may be the bazaar that you are looking for, Nicollas.