Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Illinois

No, sorry.

Although it is possible to obtain a patent on a recipe, it is not usually done. First, the recipe must be truly unique (which is not easy to prove). However, even if we assume it would qualify for patent protection, almost all food producers keep their recipe as a trade secret....the formula for Coke, KFC's special spices, etc...these are all trade secrets. Why?...because a patent only last for around 20 years...a trade secret is forever.

Well, that is interesting. Sarah Grosse is just plain wrong on that one. Recipes are patentable as processes and the resultant products are often patentable either on their own or as a product of manufacture. In fact the famous first US Patent (numbered X000001 and issued to Samuiel Hopkins of Philadelphia and signed by G. Washington) was for a recipe for making Potash or Pearl ash. So, cookie recipes are patentable subject matter. There are a number of patents for such. Keebler was active in the early 1990s patenting cookie recipes. Cookies have been around for so long that it is very difficult to come up with a recipe that would not be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the field of cookie making having knowledge of all cookie recipes ever made. Also, cookie recipes are not normally of great commercial value sufficient to justify the expense of a patent. However, if your recipe gives the cookie some exceptional characteristics,then the recipe might well be patentable. Trade secrecy is the protection of choice, coupled with a lot of misinformation to competitors so competitors can't figure out the recipe as easily. There are so many interchangeable cookie ingredients and so many things that can be substituted, that a good food compay will probably be able to duplicate any cookie without infringing a recipe. So, bottom line, while a patent might be available for a cookie recipe, and if it is good it might even have a substantial commercial value, it will almost never make economic sense to get a patent. Trade secrecy and a misinformation campaign will normally provide much more effective coverage. A trade secret cookie recipe is unlikely to last forever with modern reverse engineering techniques available to analyze the cookie. If it is of any value, it will be discovered and duplicated or simulated, probably by a non-infringing substitute.

I stand corrected. Please disregard my answer and take the advice of my learned colleagues.

If you were my client, I would have suggested trade secret rather than patent for the reasons Mr. Burdick points out (same reason the Coca-cola recipe is not patented). My "no" answer was not due to lack of knowledge that recipes are patentable subject matter, but due to my judgment (if you were my client) not to pursue that avenue. It's a waste of money.

It was a long day, and I was too tired to explain. I just jumped to the bottom line. My apologies for the failure.