Marginal Revolution: Why no patent or copyright for new food recipes?

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Why no patent or copyright for new food recipes?

A loyal MR reader writes in:

Why do we have IPRs for literature, the arts and music but not for food dishes? Of course, I'm not talking about a copyright on the Ham & Cheese sandwich, I'm talking about innovative new dishes...I'm not arguing that we SHOULD have IPRs for food, just wondering what the big difference is (if any) between the culinary arts and other arts...I realize it would be difficult to enforce such rights at mom & pop type places...but it would be possible to enforce those rights at big name places and large chains.

Food relies so much on execution, or at the national chain level on marketing, that the mere circulation of a recipe does not much diminish the competitive advantage of the creative chef. Try buying a fancy cookbook by a celebrity chef and see how well the food turns out. (In contrast, an MP3 file is a pretty good substitute for a CD.) Most chefs view their cookbooks as augmenting the value of the "restaurant experience" they provide, not diminishing it. Furthermore industry norms, and the work of food critics, will give innovating chefs the proper reputational credit. It is not worth the litigation and vagueness of standards that recipe patents would involve. Here is a recent article on recipe copyright.

Here is an academic paper on how norm-based copyright governs the current use of recipes. French chefs will ostracize "club members" who copy innovative recipes outright. Now the fashion industry wants IP protection as well.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 14, 2006 at 05:35 AM in Food and Drink | Permalink

Comments

I'm sure that if this were possible, someone (somecorp?) would eventually patent Sandwich, with subsidiary claims of Sandwich with Liquid Sauce etc., and sub-subsidiary claims of Ham-and-Cheese Sandwich, Peanut butter and jelly Sandwich and the whole caboodle.

On a serious note, patenting requires precedence, and cannot handle independent inventions of the same or very similar nature well. Especially in a well-established domain, there are times when a solution is "in the air", and it's largely a matter of luck who hits upon it first. The history of XXc. technology is full of such examples.

Posted by: A Tykhyy at Oct 14, 2006 9:03:51 AM

Tyler: I think your MP3/CD analagoy is misplaced here.

If we were to project the food industry onto the music industry, the artists could retain control of individual recordings (Joe Cocker could still sell CDs full of Beatles covers), but every song would be in public domain (no more royalty payments for Happy Birthday). Wasn't the whole idea of copywriting sheet music designed for a time before even wax recordings were widely available?

Distribution problems (and theft) are a completely different issue.

Posted by: Dan K at Oct 14, 2006 10:13:30 AM

Ironically, someone *has* patented the Peanut Butter & Jelly - or at least the version with the PB&J sealed inside the bread.

The reason fashion, databases and recipes can't be copyrighted, but music has three different sets of copyrights on each recording? Better lobbyists. I think it's pretty clear that economic optimality has very little to do with how IP policy is set, and that's a shame; the gains from a more optimal IP regime are vastly greater, at least for the developed countries, than the gains from something like more open trade. Indeed, with TRIPS, these two goals may be working at cross purposes!

Posted by: kevincure at Oct 14, 2006 11:06:01 AM

Food relies so much on execution...

That's one of the standard arguments against software patents.

So it fails as a public choice explanation of why, as kevincure puts it, the software industry has better lobbyists. Probably the ability to scale software gives more incentive to violate norms are start the IP game.

But I think historical contingency is more important. Cuisine has been around for a long time and it's clear that IP isn't important; music recordings and software are new, so they grabbed IP, in case. Moreover, music recordings grew out of sheet music, which had IP, and software grew out of the hardware of computers, which has the absurd situation of unenforced patents and stability through MAD. (Cross-licensing and MAD looking like barriers to entry, so I'd say hardware patents have had their purpose almost reversed by regulatory capture.)

Posted by: Douglas Knight at Oct 14, 2006 3:30:22 PM

The presentation of food probably is eligible for a design patent (a patent on an aesthetic design embodied in a material object). You'd have to check 35 U.S.C. 171.

Posted by: Grant Gould at Oct 14, 2006 4:18:20 PM

It is tragic that the word "copyright" has allowed so many to pervert its meaning into something akin to a human right. It is not. It is a government-issued monopoly, and like all other monopoly powers, its usage must be tightly restricted to avoid inefficient outcomes.

The copyright exists to encourage innovation and investments. There is little evidence that the current lack of a recipe copyright has discouraged either, so the demand for a copyright should be immediately rejected. Chefs or restaurants may complain if someone else steals their recipe, but unless that chef is planning to stop innovating, or that restaurant is planning to close, then there is little reason anyone else should care. Same goes for the fashion industry.

Posted by: John B at Oct 15, 2006 10:21:36 AM

If you don't want someone to copy your food dish, then don't publish the recipe.

In other words, an IPR regime already exists for recipes, and it works quite well: the law of trade secrets.

The Coca-Cola formula is the most famous example, but lots of food suppliers and restaurant chains have food formulas protected by confidentiality agreements, ownership agreements, etc.

Since the powerful players already have effective protection, they don't lobby the government for new laws that would only increase their legal risk and uncertainty.

Posted by: Oberon at Oct 15, 2006 10:46:36 PM

Wow--IP protection for recipes would pose the same problems as IP protection for fashion designs.

What a perfect parallel.

In both cuisine and couture, much innovation comes about as a result of designers and chefs building on trends, the origins of which are difficult to pinpoint. It may seem like copying runs rampant in the fashion industry, but except for low end brands copying designer lines, I don't believe it does. Sure, it's fine to copyright an LV bag or something unmistakably unique to a given house or designer...but we see the same ideas, the same trends--more than fashion outsiders might even be able to contemplate--in the shows of almost all the designers each season. These trends are often driven by the development of new fabrics, or street style trends, or current events--or even the revival of a once original design that is now considered a classic (e.g. Balenciaga silhouettes). There are extremely specific trend forecasts released seasons in advance which discuss the silhouettes, colors, fabrics, and "moods" predicted for the season.

So while one would think the similarities in the collections would be evidence of fashion espionage, it really isn't.

I think it's wonderful actually to have all of these designers showing their individual takes on the same trends...it's very interesting. It seems to me like the same sort of thing goes on in the world of haute cuisine...chefs absorb the general trends in food combinations, etc. and build on them.

And just as in fashion, the trend cycles may be relatively short...so it's not as if Chef so-and-so would be able to profit from such-and-such extremely trendy food combination for very long anyway if he had exclusive rights to it.

It should probably be illegal for someone to publish a reasonably original recipe copied from another chef's cookbook. But then how can we determine what is reasonably original?

In any case...the post is good food for thought. Thank you.

Posted by: Elsa at Oct 16, 2006 1:14:26 AM

Your arguments against recipe copyrights would go against music copyrights as well. For instance, everything you said about cookbooks could be said about sheet music, which is clearly protected by copyrights. Even CDs could be said to "augment the value" of a "concert experience," and while and MP3 is a good subsitute for a CD, is it a good substitue for a live performance? Also, while a cookbook may not be a good substitute for a meal prepared by a celebrity chef, isn't a meal prepared by another professionally trained chef using the celebrity chef's recipe a pretty good substitute? Why should highly creative chefs be forced to eke out a living solely on "performances," and not be allowed to license their recipes to other chefs, while creative musicians can earn a living either by performing OR writing music for others to perform?

For the record, though, I would prefer scaling back copyrights in nearly all areas, rather than extending them to recipes.

Posted by: Doug at Oct 16, 2006 3:28:44 PM

Recipes were in fact the first intellectual property to be given a limited legal monopoly, in ancient Greece. If I remember correctly (from a 2L patent casebook) the duration was 1 year and the practice predated Socrates by at least a century.

Posted by: Brian at Oct 17, 2006 2:49:06 AM

I'm not convinced that Mr. Cowen has the law correct on this one. Why can't you patent food? Anyone have a case cite saying you can't?

Posted by: John at Oct 17, 2006 12:03:03 PM

According to the WSJ entitled Can Fashion by Copyrighted?, top fashion designers are pushing for federal legislation that would offer three years of copyright-like protection for their designs. Apparently the EU already has similar protections in place.

My though is that, if we accept IPRs for music, literature and art, then certainly fashion and possibly cuisine should enjoy such protections as well. I don’t see the big difference between these disciplines and feel they should be treated fairly similarly… either all should feature IPR protections or none of them should.

How different would literature or the arts (painting, sculpture. etc) be if creators could not “own” their work. If such protections are vital to fostering quality books, poems and drawings then imagine the potential impact of such protections on fashion or cuisine.

Would dish IPRs incent Carlson Restaurants/TGI Friday’s, for example, to establish a huge testing facility staffed with some of the world’s best chefs to create a new super cuisine? I’m only half joking here.

Posted by: Whit Stevens at Oct 17, 2006 4:19:08 PM

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