Help me with info please: the club secretary in my garden club (a 501c) told me that I can't put names or pictures of the bloom on daylilies that I will be putting in our garden club's plant sale because they are patented, and we might not be able to sell them at all. But she won't tell me who/where she got this info from.
Whole story: I got about 100 varieties of daylilies from a friend's friend who was moving (I know, SCORE!). Majority are new varieties. Before I replanted, I potted 1 to 3 of some varieties for our sale. I feel I'm doing a disservice to not let the future buyer know it's name, but gal is saying I can't put names on them. I've combed the web trying to find information about daylily patents and reselling daylilies but can't find anything. I emailed one seller who puts the same name on the beginning of their daylilies and have not heard back.
The online prices of the 25 that I want to give to the sale is anywhere from $5 to $100. Club sells everything for $5. Any advice or info is appreciated. If it helps, I can provide the names.

@TippyToe, I'm not sure why the lady would think you can't put names on the daylilies. All AHS clubs and garden centers do that. Unless I am missing her point .

If your friend who gave you the daylilies kept tags with the daylilies and then you did the same when you potted them, they should be correctly identified. However, you may want to verify the names with the American Hemerocallis Society's database to make sure that the names of your daylilies have been registered. If you have seen these daylilies in bloom, you will also know if your named cultivars are correct.

https://www.daylilies.org/Dayl...

You certainly can send the names of the daylilies here if you'd like. Lots of people here will know right off whether it is a valid name, although without a picture, we couldn't verify that it matches your plant.

Here on NGA, there are lots of pictures and I have requested to use pictures of daylilies for our club sale. Daylilies sell a whole lot better when there is a picture! Most people don't mind if you use their picture, but they do mind if you use it without asking. Here is the daylily database on this site in case you want to search here.
The Daylilies Database

Good luck with your sale. And if you have pictures, please send those! We would love to see what you have.

The lady is correct that legally you cannot sell patented plants, but not many daylily cultivars are patented. (I assume she means the plants themselves and not copyrighted pictures used for selling them). You can check if a daylily is patented by looking up its name in the US Patent and Trademark Office database.

https://www.uspto.gov/

You could list the names here and I expect that there will be posts letting you know if any are actually patented.

Many named daylilies are registered but that is not the same as being patented. Being registered means that the same name cannot be used on two registered daylilies. Being registered does not affect what you can do with a named daylily.

Dr Apps have some patented daylilies. Sue suggestion should clear up some of the confusion.

Hey, I tried out the link Sue gave, and I really liked it. Find the "Find it Fast" header, select "Patents", and click on PatFT. It'll give you a little box to type the name or part of the name in, and it will list any patents with the what you typed in.

I was curious, though, what happens when a daylily is registered by one name but is marketed by another name. A popular plant available at some box stores or garden centers is Early Bird Cardinal. Well, when you buy it, unless you know better, that's the only name you know. But Early Bird Cardinal is actually registered with the AHS as Endless Heart. Well, turns out if the tag you have on the plant says Early Bird Cardinal and you look that up, you won't get a hit on the patent search. You have to search by the name registered with the AHS in this case, Endless Heart.

So I guess my suggestion is to do both Vickie's suggestion and Sue's:

1. Vickie: "verify the names with the American Hemerocallis Society's database to make sure that the names of your daylilies have been registered."

2. Sue's link to check for patents on the verified names

...if you can't find the name either place, maybe come back here to see if we know it.

Thank you all for your help (wish I knew how to tag y'all) I will definitely check the links. The main debate is if we can sell patented daylilies without creator's permission.
As for the names, I have checked my photos with the database and what has bloomed is correct except a few (but I've been told Washington state blooms are duller than places with real summers so they might be correct just not brilliant.) Some had no tags - rather it rained and I didn't use a sharpie so the ink dripped) and some of her tags were faded so I have only deciphering.
I'm including photos of those I'm not sure of. I'll do it in a couple posts because my internet is spotty and I lost my last post after a few photos.

I know names of varieties that I didn't mess up with tagging are correct, the gal I got them from bought directly from hybridizers or sellers (her tags were listed with name, hybridizer, year and if they won any awards) so I will check the links to see if any are forbidden for reselling without permission.

These are ones I could use help identifying, sorry so many

marked: Waltz across Habersham...


marked Set the St??


Celebration Shore?


Both are marked "Little Watercolor"



I searched under "happy" and none on database fit this one:


and no "Kaleidoscope" fits this one either


This is really confusing:
Heavenly Blackbird isn't black


and "Green Arrow" isn't green


this is gorgeous, it looks like an orchid, but the tag completely washed out

sooby said:The lady is correct that legally you cannot sell patented plants, but not many daylily cultivars are patented. (I assume she means the plants themselves and not copyrighted pictures used for selling them). You can check if a daylily is patented by looking up its name in the US Patent and Trademark Office database.

https://www.uspto.gov/

Hmm, went to that sight and whoo, it's confusing. I typed in one of the names under the "search" box and got mattresses. Is there an easier way? I have about 100 varieties/names (although a few start with Westbourne and Small World)

Maybe you would find Google Patents easier, just go from this one for 'Rosy Returns' and use the search box at the top.

https://patents.google.com/pat...

Most of the names you have posted so far are not likely to be patented.

"The main debate is if we can sell patented daylilies without creator's permission."

That's not really a debate because no you can't. You can sell AHS registered daylilies that are not patented without the creator's permission however. Most daylilies are registered with the American Daylily (Hemerocallis) Society but not patented.

The Westbourne ones are not patented, but are registered with the AHS. No problem selling those.

@TippyToe, check these links out that are in the NGA database, not sure if any match yours though.

I would be tempted to just sell them as unknowns:

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Westbourne Waltz Across Haversham')

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Set the Style')

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Celestial Shore')

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Little Watercolor')

Vickie,
I think you are right about Westbourne Waltz Across Haversham, Set the Style and Celestial Shore looks good, too.

TippyToe said:I know names of varieties that I didn't mess up with tagging are correct, the gal I got them from bought directly from hybridizers or sellers (her tags were listed with name, hybridizer, year and if they won any awards) so I will check the links to see if any are forbidden for reselling without permission.

You mentioned messing up the tags. What happened?

marked Set the St??

There is a registered variety, 'Set The Style', which resembles this image in color only, and even then only approximately.

Celebration Shore?

To me, this tag reads 'Celestial Shore', but the picture doesn't resemble the pictures found online for that variety. Purples tend to photograph red, but the flower also looks quite a bit different.

I wouldn't be overly concerned regarding patents at a local garden club plant sale. No one really cares, other than your club secretary. The topic certainly makes for an interesting discussion, and an opportunity to learn about the vagaries of the patent system, but that's about it.

The real-world issue is one of correct naming. Many of the plants are mislabeled, some names appear to have been made up. (usually referred to as 'garden names')

Unless you've personally grown and flowered a daylily, you don't really have any way of knowing if it's the correct variety, and you shouldn't put a name on it. Identification is particularly difficult in the Pacific Northwest, where daylilies seldom resemble their pictures taken elsewhere, let alone the hybridizer's (AHS) images. In that respect, the plant database here is much more useful. Acquisition of such a large number of plants through a friend-of-a-friend more or less breaks the 'chain of evidence', so to speak, and nothing appears to be reliable. Enough labeling errors happen when simply moving plants around your own garden, but if someone's digging 100 plants to give away, and they're in the process of moving, there's no telling what could happen.

You probably have a few plants which will be identifiable by comparison with online pictures and descriptions. Those should be labeled with their names. For the rest of them, my recommendation would be to label them according to what you've seen.

Daylily, 5" flower, burnt orange, gold throat, 36" tall
Daylily, 6" flower, pink with ruffles and green throat, 28" tall
Daylily, large yellow, spidery/star shape, 32" tall

Pictures on the sales table are always helpful. Use your own pictures for the unidentified plants. For the daylilies which you feel are correctly named, find some images online. Concerning the copyright issues involving the use of online pictures, refer to the first paragraph concerning patents.

Above all, relax, have fun, and may your club coffers be filled to overflowing.

JamesT (have not figured out how to shorten your post to quote so you get tagged)
Why were so many tagged wrong? What happened was multifaceted:
--she had 20 beds with 30 each, and that's not including what was in her gardens. (she's known by some growers and usually buys new intros. I was expecting a lady with a few daylilies and was blown away when I saw her beds) I came home with over 100 in 2 digs. Too many to handle at once and in rain
--some of the tags had faded (metal tags with labels on them that had weathered)
--too many cooks... a few people from the garden club come help dig and two were digging and bagging so fast tags got left behind or put into the wrong bag- I was doing the writing on those pink strips as fast as I could and stupidly abbreviated (with my poor handwriting "M Harpy" it think is "Make me Happy" and sometimes couldn't get the tags tied to the lilies before the bag was walked to the truck. (yes I told them to slow down to no avail)
--the second time I went by myself to avoid the problem, but forgot a sharpie and wrote on the plastic strips with my pen that washed away when it rained. Also the daylily club had come through so many holes with tags fallen on the ground.
-- 5 friends came to help me plant and divide "will work for plants"- again, too many cooks. I saw this happen with Little Watercolor first I was guessing at the name, then when the 4 pots bloomed they were different.

Thanks all for helping with the patent question-- I will be well armed with info to argue my case that they SHOULD have names on them, and to prove to her they are not all patented (and hopefully none are so I can share the joy and beauty of all my bootie)

I'm tempted to list what I have for pure bragging rites

BUT... I am keeping records- I've got excel sheets with >variety name >daylily database photo or seller's photo >basic info (color, ht, blm sz, frag) >my photo >notes

Unks I'm keeping basic info and several photos, I have her mostly complete list of which varety was in which beds and that I track of which bed I dug from- fortunately got most recorded and tagged before rain washed the info. But as you see, lots of mysteries

I'll be keeping track or the next couple years and selling only those that are named correctly (and not patented) plus I'll use my own photos (it's disappointing to see the brilliant web photos and compare to my dull blooms, but I don't want to mislead Washington gardeners.)

Good luck with your daylilies, Patrice. It is good that you have her list to go by. That will help solve some of the mystery plants in the next few years as they bloom

Patrice, the Dave's Garden website includes patent information in their database listings. You have to be a paid member to get in the database, though. I use it only for the ones that are labeled as patented and not patented, there. If there's no info on patent, I don't take that as a "no patent" bc perhaps it hasn't been posted there yet, so I put a question mark in my daylily patent column, in those instances. But as mentioned above, not many DL's are actually patented.

IMHO it seems that at least the AHS should have patent information.

Dana, the daylilies listed on the AHS database it is my understanding are not patented therefore no patent info is necessary. They are all registered with the AHS.