can you make a profit off of someone else's recipe?

[nageov3t]

how does IP work in the cooking world?

purely theoretical question, I was just wondering about the legality of a chef or bakery pulling a recipe from a cook book / magazine / whatever and selling the product themselves... are they selling their labor or is it IP theft to, in effect, sell someone else's creation as their own?

 

[BoomerD]

Copyright infringement most likely.

 

[CrazyLazy]

Most likely not, many recipes are old enough to be in the public domain. Even if they are new as long as they are at least slightly different from the original recipe it would be difficult to claim infringement. As far as I know you also don't have the cooking equivalent of the RIAA hunting around for people to sue.

 

[imported_Baloo]

IF you are talking about selling the recipe in a book, no you cannot. If you are talking about preparing food for sale using someone else's recipe, well, that is common place, and perfectly legal.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: loki8481
how does IP work in the cooking world?

purely theoretical question, I was just wondering about the legality of a chef or bakery pulling a recipe from a cook book / magazine / whatever and selling the product themselves... are they selling their labor or is it IP theft to, in effect, sell someone else's creation as their own?

copyright infringement if it's published.

stealing someone elses unpublished recipe? Unethical but legal.

Claiming it to be your own? Possibly illegal.

 

[KMc]

Recipes can not be patented or really legally protected in any way. The only successful way to protect a recipe is for a company to designate it and keep it a trade secret (e.g. Coca-Cola, etc.). You can prosecute the stealing of a trade secret, and you can prosecute an employee for giving away a trade secret through the use of a confidentiality agreement or non-disclosure agreement, but once it is out, it's out. It's amazing the effort that a company like Coda-Cola has put into keeping their recipe secret and that it has never been leaked.

 

[Drakkon]

add just a "touch" of something with no taste like a 1/4 teaspoon of water. It makes the recipe just different enough that people can't claim its the same and if they do you say the water makes a huge difference you can taste.

 

[CrazyLazy]

Just to clarify, are they selling the text of the recipe or using the recipe to create food which they would then sell?

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: CrazyLazy
Just to clarify, are they selling the text of the recipe or using the recipe to create food which they would then sell?

that one

like if the bakery in my local grocery store starting using the tollhouse cookie recipe instead of whatever crappy cookies they make currently or started selling cakes made with recipes from Bon Appetit.

 

[conehead433]

Let's ask Cindy McCain.