Imagine spending years and millions of dollars doing the R&D on said plant, and finding mass-cultured clones for sale in Home Depot the next year undercutting your investment.
It's a novel invention and no one needs glowing petunias. I think that's pretty much the ideal scenario for a patent.
If your business model relies on fairly draconian control over the liberties of individuals in ways that defy normal human social norms (like propagating and giving away plants), then its probably not the right business model. Not even just from a moral standpoint; its a losing business model.
Also, exerting control over a commercial cloning effort and trying to control personal use and propagation are totally different scenarios.
The reality is their business is just not going to be substantially hurt by personal propagation and use.
Again, the business recognizes this difference. They openly permit personal propagation. They just don't want you starting a for-profit glowing plants nursery with your clones.
Practically? Unless you gift it to a thousand "friends", they're unlikely to a) hear of it, b) care about it, or c) break even on the legal costs of going after it.
> APHIS found this modified petunia is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk compared to other cultivated petunia. As a result, it is not subject to regulation under 7 CFR part 340. From a plant pest risk perspective, this petunia may be safely grown and bred in the United States.
Imagine that people have been breeding animals and plants for thousands and thousands of years, and still anybody is free to do what they want with them.
Getting two animals to fuck and genetically engineering a plant in the lab are… not quite comparable in required levels of effort. Even then, if you want semen from a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred to try and build off those genes, it'll cost you. Or a purebred dog.
No one's putting in decades of R&D into something like this if they can only sell a few thousand for a single year before the big nurseries take over.
Corn mazes are actually created by selectively planing the corn in a pattern or by selectively cutting down plants to create the maze. This can be done with a variety of different plants, but corn is a popular choice because of it's height, durability, and the timing of its harvest.
I suspect the similarity of its other name (maize) is just a coincidence.
The company has made statements indicating propagating for personal use is OK.