Can you create and/or patent a new chicken breed? How????

[Gypsy07]

Whether the OP is new to breeding chickens or not is kinda irrelevant. They've already stated the question is purely one of curiosity. A hypothetical question deserves answers, not just more questions. As to why anyone would want to do this, I'd say a perfectly reasonable answer could be as simple as 'Well, why not?' Hobbies and interests are things you should feel free to indulge in without the need to justify your choices or preferences to other people with rational reasoning. Just about ALL of the chicken breeds around today are only here cause someone way back in the past thought 'Hey, what if I cross an X with a Y and then add a bit of Z?' And a lot of the breeds on the verge of extinction are there for a reason.

I was reading a discussion on another forum recently, about re-creating old breeds that were long extinct. One particular breed was mentioned. Some people were keen on doing it just to see if they could. Some people said, well, the reason this particular bird became extinct very quickly after its creation was because it was basically rubbish. It was slow growing, too lean to make good eating, a poor layer of small eggs and very dull looking into the bargain. The argument against was fairly persuasive. So if the breed was still in existence today, would we have some kind of moral obligation to keep it going?

I imagine loads of backyard hobby breeders have more than one 'new breed' programme up their sleeves. Probably more for their own satisfaction than to have a new breed recognised officially or to make any money from it. Here in the UK, to have a new breed recognised by the PCGB (Poultry Club of Great Britain) it has to have been breeding true for at least four generations, be kept by a number of different breeders, and for all the birds to have been registered with the PCGB and identified with their official club leg rings for a certain number of years. You then have to apply for official breed recognition which may or may not be granted depending on how well all of the requirements are fulfilled. This applies to long established 'old' breeds that aren't native to the UK as well as any kind of new breeds. In fact think most of the 'new' breeds gaining recognition are in fact just old breeds from different countries...

I think here in the UK the only people who take out a patent on breeds are scientists doing genetic research. Like the glow-in-the-dark mice.

 

[catdaddyfro]

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Yes on the recreation of these old breeds some will be impossible because the parent/breeder stock of them is also extinct.

Jeff

 

[saladin]

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[Oregon Blues]

As for developing a new breed, there is a huge demand out there for a fast growing, large breasted chicken that can be butchered at 8-10 weeks, lays tons of eggs, and is completely and reliably reproducible, all the while never having any health issues during it's long life.

Nobody has done it yet, but the fellow who does has got a good market waiting for him.

 

[Citron_d'uccle]

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saladin- this was pretty much how I would have responded to your insulting post as well. The BYC rules state NO TROLLING, CAUSING CONFLICTS, ETC. YOU HAVE FLAMED FELLOW BYCers REPEATEDLY IN 36 DIFFERENT POSTS CONCERNING NEW BREEDS. IF YOU HAVE NOTHING PRODUCTIVE TO THE FORUM TO POST, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO GO ELSEWHERE!

 

[Citron_d'uccle]

Then where do Easter Eggers, Sex Links, Productions, Delawares,
Ameraucanas, Chanteclers, YES EVEN our beloved Marans as well as MANY, MANY other breeds that are a cross of two or more breeds come from? The Marans was bred from Game, wild landrace and imported chickens.

The basis for my original question was purely, totally, 110% HYPOTHETICAL. I am not new to rasing OR breeding chickens and poultry. My father was a farmer/ poultry breeder. I grew up in Central Oregon and my father knew the Holderread's very well. I was just thinking out loud. I would venture to bet that 60-80% of the food you eat has been engineered and/or modified to give a finished product that has all the factors such as size, yield, disease resistance, taste, mouthfeel, etc. that the producer feels are desirable characteristics. But suddenly if I want to 'hypothetically' have a breed recognised because it 'hypothetically' grows well and lays large, dark eggs consistently I am on PETA's TOP 10 MOST WANTED because I 'supposedly' don't support critically endangered breeds? Guess I better tell that to my Redcaps, Buckeyes, Buttercups and Delawares, as well as my Marans, Dominiques, Chocolate and Lavender Turkeys, Silver Appleyard Ducks, Welsh Harlequin Ducks, Cotton Patch and Touloose Geese, Red Wattle and Tamworth Hogs, and my Red Poll and Pineywoods cattle!

 

[orientphoenix]

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omg that is what i'm experimenting with and i hope i create one

 

[saladin]

Citron_d'uccle :

Then where do Easter Eggers, Sex Links, Productions, Delawares,
Ameraucanas, Chanteclers, YES EVEN our beloved Marans as well as MANY, MANY other breeds that are a cross of two or more breeds come from? The Marans was bred from Game, wild landrace and imported chickens.

The basis for my original question was purely, totally, 110% HYPOTHETICAL. I am not new to rasing OR breeding chickens and poultry. My father was a farmer/ poultry breeder. I grew up in Central Oregon and my father knew the Holderread's very well. I was just thinking out loud. I would venture to bet that 60-80% of the food you eat has been engineered and/or modified to give a finished product that has all the factors such as size, yield, disease resistance, taste, mouthfeel, etc. that the producer feels are desirable characteristics. But suddenly if I want to 'hypothetically' have a breed recognised because it 'hypothetically' grows well and lays large, dark eggs consistently I am on PETA's TOP 10 MOST WANTED because I 'supposedly' don't support critically endangered breeds? Guess I better tell that to my Redcaps, Buckeyes, Buttercups and Delawares, as well as my Marans, Dominiques, Chocolate and Lavender Turkeys, Silver Appleyard Ducks, Welsh Harlequin Ducks, Cotton Patch and Touloose Geese, Red Wattle and Tamworth Hogs, and my Red Poll and Pineywoods cattle!

I was simply asking a question.​

 

[stoneunhenged]

The short answer is, yes, it is theoretically possible to patent a new breed of chicken. In 1987, the United States Commissioner of Patents announced that "the Patent and Trademark Office now considers nonnaturally occuring nonhuman multicellular living organisms, including animals, to be patentable subject matter." Many countries do not allow the patenting of animals, but the U.S. has been at the forefront of issuing patents for living organisms. Most patents in the U.S. are issued for organisms (or tissues) that have been altered through gene-splicing. But, a number of patents have been issued for animals that have been "invented" through other techniques, including surgery.

The burden would be on the patent applicant to show that the new breed of chicken is patentable. Factors that might be relevant are whether the breed is in the exclusive control of the applicant, whether the breed is differentiated from all other chicken breeds, whether the new breed produces young that are nearly identical to the parents, and whether the new breed has a stable genome over generations. This would not be an easy standard to meet.

You could also theoretically (and probably more easily) trademark a name for a new breed or variety of chicken and thereby provide some protection for your intellectual property. For example, if the first breeder of coronation Sussex had registered the trademark for the name Coronation Sussex

then others would have been prevented from calling their birds Coronation Sussex without the permission of the original breeder. (Obviously, this did not occur in reality.) But, it is fairly easy to circumvent this by simply calling the new variety, to use my example, lavender columbian Sussex. So, a trademark offers some protection for a new breed, but importantly, does not limit others from raising and selling the breed. It only protects a name.

I'm not an intellectual property lawyer, so don't rely on my opinion expressed here. But, I have done the research as best I could, and this reflects my understanding of the state of the law on this issue. I could be wrong. You should consult an intellectual property lawyer if you want to delve deeper into this issue.

Hope this helps.

 

[Citron_d'uccle]

Sorry for the confusion. Let me say right now, I have NO intention of patenting animals or anything else. Wrong use of that text for lack of a better word.

Basically if I created a breed that had desirable traits, how would I gain recognition for the breed and how would I go about getting recognised for creating it? Let's say, again 'hypothetically', that I created a breed that would reach a weight desirable for butcher at 10-12 weeks, that would lay 200+ dark brown eggs per year, were great foragers, and never had health problems due to size, breed or growth. If after 5-6 generations I could get it to breed true, how would I then gain recognition for the breed as well as myself as a breeder.