Plant Patents and the U.S. Plant Patent Act of 1930
This law established patent rights for developers of new varieties of many asexually propagated plants, for example apple trees and rose bushes that are propagated by cutting pieces of the stem rather than by germinating seeds. Tuber-propagated plants, such as potatoes, were exempt from patent coverage because the part of the plant used for asexual propagation was also the part used as food. The PPA of 1930 created what we now know as Plant Patents.