Each of the following acts, if performed in connection with the sale, offering for sale, or advertising of sexually or asexually reproducible plant material or tubers or parts of tubers, is prohibited, and the Secretary may, if the Secretary determines after an opportunity for hearing that the act is being so performed, issue an order to cease and desist, said order being binding unless appealed under section 2461 of this title:

(1) Use of the words “U.S. Protected Variety” or any word or number importing that the material is a variety protected under certificate, when it is not.

(2) Use of any wording importing that the material is a variety for which an application for plant variety protection is pending, when it is not.

(3) Use of either the phrase “Unauthorized Propagation Prohibited” or “Unauthorized Seed Multiplication Prohibited” or similar phrase without reasonable basis. Any reasonable basis expires one year after the first sale of the variety except as justified thereafter by a pending application or a certificate still in force.

(4) Failure to use the name of a variety for which a certificate of protection has been issued under this chapter, even after the expiration of the certificate, except that lawn, turf, or forage grass seed, or alfalfa or clover seed may be sold without a variety name unless use of the name of a variety for which a certificate of protection has been issued under this chapter is required under State law.

Anyone convicted of violating a binding cease and desist order, or of performing any act prohibited in subsection (a) of this section for the purpose of deceiving the public, shall be fined not more than $10,000 and not less than $500.

Anyone whose business is damaged or is likely to be damaged by an act prohibited in subsection (a) of this section, or is subjected to competition in connection with which such act is performed, may have remedy by civil action.

(Pub. L. 91–577, title III, § 128, Dec. 24, 1970, 84 Stat. 1557; Pub. L. 96–574, § 19(c), Dec. 22, 1980, 94 Stat. 3352; Pub. L. 103–349, §§ 12, 13(v), Oct. 6, 1994, 108 Stat. 3142, 3144; Pub. L. 115–334, title X, § 10108(d), Dec. 20, 2018, 132 Stat. 4906.)