American patents include three different types of patents: invention patents, new patents and plant patents. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issues the following three kinds of patent certificates: patentforplant: As a big agricultural country, the United States attaches great importance to inventions in the field of plants, not only lists plant patents separately, but also makes many regulations specifically applicable to plant inventions in terms of application and protection. Article 25 of China's patent law lists new plant varieties as the scope that cannot be protected by patents, but American plant patents do not exclude plant varieties. An invention-creation applying for a plant patent must be an innovative special plant cultivated through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction. A plant can only have one patent.
The United States does not protect utility model patents, but this is not unique to the United States, because many patent offices in the world do not protect utility models.