Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Massachusetts

Re: Protection for Recipie

If you developed the recipes for a restaurant, chances are that the recipes are the property of the restaurant.

Assuming the recipes are considered yours, you probably have a common law copyright on those recipes. However, others may be able to use the recipes. The way you may be able to keep others from �borrowing� the recipes is to keep them as a trade secret. There are a number of stringent conditions that you will have to comply with in order to claim something as a trade secret. If you are serious about this, you should consult an Attorney.

Good luck with your endeavors.

Re: Protection for Recipie

Are these pies? (Recipe was spelled incorrectly as "recipie" 2 out of 3 times in the message you posted and the subject line given to it.)

I'll give you my estimated answer, but you should really read Atty. Workman's response if he writes one, since this is one of his favorite areas of law.

If the recipe is already written down, the copyright applies already automatically. There are two ways I know of to improve upon that, though, and these are they: a) Put a copyright notice ( "Copyright 1999 by YOUR NAME" or by your name and your restaurant's name or whatever suits you best. ) b) You can, for perhaps a $10 fee, register your copywritten material at the Federal Copyright Office. Send me or Atty Workman the materials and a retainer and I'm sure you can have it done for you professionally but you can probably get 'good enough' results doing it yourself.

I believe, however, that won't stop anybody from using the recipe, only from copying or reprinting it without your permission. The next question that comes to my mind is whether or not you can patent a food recipe. I've never seen or heard of it being done but it seems like exactly the thing that a patent would cover: a process, an algorithm, in short, a recipe! Again, I expect Atty. Workman will know whether you can or why you cannot. It maybe that your recipes have to be quite unique; it may also be that the protection afforded is too weak to be of any use; it could be that nobody's recipe is worth so much financially that an entire financial empire might grow out of it, although McDonald's did quite well with their particular French Fries recipe!

As a parting thought, perhaps you've asked the wrong question. What you should consider doing instead is protecting by a means just about the opposite of patent: use trade secret. That appears to be the Coke (Coca-Cola) method. If nobody finds out the recipe, they cannot reproduce or imitate the resulting "food" (yech) product. Indeed, I've never had a knock-off brand cola that tasted anything like a real Coke.

CONTINUED ....

Re: Protection for Recipie

Response message 2 of 2. (This is CONTINUED from my other messge.):

What does trade secret protection entail? Get lots of signatures from everyone who has reason to have access to the recipe: the cooks especially, of course, the people who order the ingredients, of course, and perhaps even those vendors that supply enough of the ingredients that they could piece it all together (with proportions) if they tried. These signatures would be on a special agreement that should be both binding (requiring contract "consideration") and truly intimidating, one drawn by a lawyer, I think. And one final "ingredient" to trade secret protection is that you actually treat the recipes as secret and make very obvious efforts to safeguard them. This means, for example, printing them on something that couldn't be copied easily, keeping them NOT out where just any ol' waiter could pick them up and read them, not allowing a first-day employee access, perhaps laminating them on a sheet too large to fit into your own copier(s), ..., whatever. I recognize that you need to have copies available for certain employees, so it's difficult. Perhaps you would keep posted a list of the qualified employees so that every employee not only knows whether or not he's on the list (and each employee knows who else is / isn't on the list), but knows when they leave the job (and turnover -- not turnovers! -- is high in the restaurant business, I know!), track will be kept of the fact that they had access and you will even keep track of where they go to work afterwards.

Another possibility is that you keep a secret from most of the cooks, for example, you could keep the spice-mix a secret that only you and your trusted side-kick know and you mix up the secret spice sack in advance for the other cooks.

Good luck. If you appreciate my attempt to help me, please mail me one of your exclusive recipe foods, with reheating directions, please! Or, if the restaurant is near Newton, please call me with directions! Thank you.