Porkpal...
I am not well-known on this forum because I generally spend my time working on the HMF database. I know I come across as kind of stuffy and with no sense of humor ... not true, but it takes a while for people to find that out.
When I first started my rose life, 20+ years ago, I volunteered for Tiny Petals Miniature Rose Nursery founded by Dee Bennett and, at that time run by her daughter Sue. Sue was writing the patents for the roses her late mother had bred and were in testing when she died and that TP introduced while Sue was running the nursery.
Then I met Kim Rupert, a rose breeder who had been mentored by Ralph Moore who also wrote his own patents. (I had to read the rose tomes just to understand what Kim was talking about because he talked in "crosses"). Kim made me do my own rose lineage trees by hand ..... arghhhhhh). That started me working on HMF bringing the rose database up-to-date. All of that is to say that I look at roses through the breeder's eye.
I was taught, at that time in the rose world, that no one with any integrity would ever buy a patented rose from a person that was not licensed. I am not the rose police and may know more about the botany of roses (and rose breeders through history) than the average gardener, but I still consider myself a beginner because I know how much I don't know about roses.
However, I seem to be stuck with the breeder's bias about patented roses.
As a rose friend says, today we are in the dark ages of roses, but I do know that Conard-Pyle/Meilland and Kordes are soliciting roses for trial from American breeders. They are also licensing US rose nurseries to sell their roses. Also, I think that good rose nurseries selling non-patented roses are going under and need our support to keep them around.
Altho' I don't have room for more roses, if I were still buying roses, I'd leave the E-bay sellers alone just to make sure my dollars support the remaining US nurseries. Yes, you can buy roses cheaper on E-bay and there are some reliable sellers, but, personally, I just can't go there.
Smiles,
Lyn
PS... please think of this post as mostly a personal introduction and not a statement about any member who doesn't have the same bias.
on that EBay comment! 
