Cite as: 534 U. S. 124 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
the PVPA provides the exclusive means for protecting sexually reproducing plants, petitioners rely on the legislative history of the PVPA. They argue that this history shows the PVPA was enacted because sexually reproducing plant varieties and their seeds were not and had never been intended by Congress to be included within the classes of things patentable under Title 35.13
The PVPA itself, however, contains no statement that PVP certificates were to be the exclusive means of protecting sexually reproducing plants. The relevant statements in the legislative history reveal nothing more than the limited view of plant breeding taken by some Members of Congress who believed that patent protection was unavailable for sexually reproduced plants. This view stems from a lack of awareness concerning scientific possibilities.
Furthermore, at the time the PVPA was enacted, the PTO had already issued numerous utility patents for hybrid plant processes. Many of these patents, especially since the 1950's, included claims on the products of the patented process, i. e., the hybrid plant itself. See Kloppenburg 264. Such plants were protected as part of a hybrid process and not on their own. Nonetheless, these hybrids still enjoyed protection under § 101, which reaffirms that such material was within the scope of § 101.
2
Petitioners next argue that the PVPA altered the subject-matter coverage of § 101 by implication. Brief for Petitioners 33-36. Yet "the only permissible justification for a repeal by implication is when the earlier and later statutes
13 Petitioners point to a House Report that concluded: "Under patent law, protection is presently limited to those varieties of plants which reproduce asexually, that is, by such methods as grafting or budding. No protection is available to those varieties of plants which reproduce sexually, that is, generally by seeds." H. R. Rep. No. 91-1605, p. 1 (1970); Brief for Petitioners 40.
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