| Again Cj, all valid points which I understand, especially from a commercial/business perspective. Realistically though, it is very, very unlikely that any patented orchid would ever win an AOS award anyway. The reason is because a patented plant is probably a clone. I suppose the grower could conceivably win a cultural award with one, like a CCM or CCE, but that's it. Your original plant could possibly be awarded with for flower quality as well but not the clones. Again if you patented an orchid, cloned it, sold it to someone who then put it up for judging, and if the judges were aware it was a clone, it would not be awarded. This makes the question of cultivar name authority irrelevant.
And again I'm just giving you the reality of the situation here, I'm not saying what should or should not be, but if you sold someone a division of a plant (or the original plant for that matter) to which you had given a cultivar name, but which had not yet been awarded, and if that person put the plant up for judging and gets it awarded, that person would be under no obligation to retain the given but technically invalid cultivar name. (Please don't be insulted by my calling it "invalid" I'm not intending to be insulting or anything I'm just laying it out like it is.)
Patent registration has no bearing on the AOS award system except that in the process of judging a team may need to do a little research to see if a cultivar name was given as a result of a previous award, or as a way of distinguishing a batch of cloned plants. If the former, the plant will have to beat its previous award (not an easy thing to do) if the latter (a clone) it won't be awarded.
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