Cite as: 534 U. S. 124 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
§ 4888 by adding: "No plant patent shall be declared invalid on the ground of noncompliance with this section if the description is made as complete as is reasonably possible." Id., § 2, 46 Stat. 376.
In 1952, Congress revised the patent statute and placed the plant patents into a separate chapter 15 of Title 35 entitled, "Patents for plants." 35 U. S. C. §§ 161-164.4 This was merely a housekeeping measure that did nothing to change the substantive rights or requirements for a plant patent. A "plant patent" 5 continued to provide only the exclusive right to asexually reproduce a protected plant, § 163, and the description requirement remained relaxed, § 162.6 Plant patents under the PPA thus have very limited coverage and less stringent requirements than § 101 utility patents.
Importantly, chapter 15 nowhere states that plant patents are the exclusive means of granting intellectual property protection to plants. Although unable to point to any language that requires, or even suggests, that Congress intended the PPA's protections to be exclusive, petitioners advance three reasons why the PPA should preclude assigning utility patents for plants. We find none of these arguments to be persuasive.
4 The PPA, as amended, provides: "Whoever invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." 35 U. S. C. § 161 (1994 ed.).
5 Patents issued under § 161 are referred to as "plant patents," which are distinguished from § 101 utility patents and § 171 design patents.
6 To obtain a plant patent under § 161 a breeder must meet all of the requirements for § 101, except for the description requirement. See § 162 ("No plant patent shall be declared invalid for noncompliance with section 112 [providing for written description] of this title if the description is as complete as is reasonably possible").
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