Have you come up with a recipe and are you sure no one else has tested it before? You may have a delicious recipe in your hands, but to patent it, it must be considered a novelty, it must not be taken for granted and it must be useful. For thousands of years, home cooks and chefs have been putting ingredients together, so coming up with something truly new isn't easy at all. If your prescription does not reflect these characteristics, there are other legal protections you can use to claim ownership. Read on to learn more about how to patent a recipe.
Steps
Part 1 of 2: Part 1: Make sure your recipe is patentable
Step 1. Find out what things can be patented
Section 35 USC § 101 on Patent Law states that "Anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machinery, product, composition of ingredients, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may later obtain the patent, subject to conditions and requirements deriving from this title. " Recipes can fall into this category in two different ways, as they are always useful, and may involve a new process or technique or include new compounds. All this to say that the recipes are undoubtedly patentable, provided they meet the other requirements.
Step 2. Determine if your recipe is new
Under the law, "new" means anything that has never existed before. This is where things get tough to patent recipes. It is truly difficult to determine if a particular mix of ingredients has ever been put together in any kitchen before. There are several ways of researching to see if your recipe is truly new and capable of being patented.
- Search the database of the "United States Patent and Trademark Office" to check if your recipe has already been patented.
- Look for your recipe in cookbooks or on the internet. If you find it, it may not be valid for the patent because, either it is already an existing patent or if it has been published somewhere, and therefore is considered already "disclosed".
- If you can't find an exact copy of the recipe, you can proceed to determine if it meets the other characteristics.
Step 3. Make sure your recipe isn't trivial
If your recipe involves a technique or combination of ingredients that leads to a unique and non-trivial result, it may be patentable. However, if your recipe is something that is easy for other people to come up with, or includes techniques that lead to predictable results, it may not be patentable. Generally most of the recipes invented by "home" cooks are not patentable, since they would not lead to surprising results according to a qualified cook.
- Food companies tend to create patentable recipes more easily, because they are able to use experimental processes and ingredients that lead to non-obvious results. For example, a patentable recipe could be a recipe that involves new techniques for producing long-life products.
- It is not by adding a single ingredient to a recipe that you get a patentable product. For example, an imaginative cook might decide to add cinnamon to the meatloaf recipe. While the results can be surprisingly good, most chefs could easily predict the change in flavor that the addition of cinnamon would give the recipe.
Part 2 of 2: Part 2: Applying for a Patent
Step 1. Decide what kind of patent you need
There are various types of patents available and the recipe could fall into different patent categories. The Utility Patent protects new inventions that have a useful application. This covers new methods, processes, machines, newly manufactured items, devices or chemical compounds, or any new improvements to any of these items or processes. Most recipes would fall into the Utility Patent category, unless you decide to package your final product in a single package which itself must be patented. In this case you will also have to apply for a Design Patent.
Step 2. Find out in what situations you need patent protection
Patents can be filed both in the United States and globally. If you think your patent requires international protection, then you should apply for a global patent.
Step 3. Have a lawyer follow you to file your documents
There are patent attorneys who are in charge of filing documents at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. While you can independently submit your documents, the patent office recommends hiring a lawyer at this point to handle the paperwork and make sure you have sent all the necessary materials. It does not matter who is in charge of filing them, the documents are then sent electronically to the patent office.
- The form can be downloaded directly from the US Patent and Trademark Office website at uspto.gov.
- The patent form must be submitted online or by mail (please note that filling out online will save you $ 400 in filing costs).
Step 4. Wait for your request to be accepted or denied
The US Patent Office will consider your documents and evaluate if your recipe is patentable. If approved, the patent office will contact you. After paying the issue and publication fee, your patent will be approved.
- If the request is refused you have the possibility to contest the decision or to implement improvements suggested directly by the patent office. At that point, you can postpone the request for re-evaluation.
- If the request is denied and you still want to protect your recipe, you can do so by declaring it a trade secret. People with knowledge of the secret will be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and this will prevent your recipe from being made public.
