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A Recipe for Intellectual Property Madness | 26 comments (26 topical) | Post A Comment
That's alarming...[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous User on Sat Oct 14, 2006 at 12:33:30 PM PDT

You could get sued by a litigation-happy chef for so much as telling someone you liked the food at the restaurant, describing the meal you ordered to a friend the next day, or even for burping afterwards, if the *smell* of the food was still on your breath (you just partially copied the expression of the food, without permission!) If you could actually win a case like that (and as crazy as courts in the US are getting these days, I see that day coming, if it's not already here), there would be enormous temptation for a chef to sue a wealthy patron of the restaurant, since they would have deep pockets to pay damages with. There's also that "patent pending" blurb on the cotton candy sheet; I was not aware you could patent a recipe. In fact, I'm fairly sure you can't! You can patent a revolutionary new way of cooking food, but not the food cooked with that method, AFAIK, IANAL. But I do know that fraudulently putting the words "patent pending" on something when you're not actually in the process of patenting it is illegal.

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The patent in question[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by Anonymous User on Sat Oct 14, 2006 at 09:36:52 PM PDT

"There's also that "patent pending" blurb on the cotton candy sheet; I was not aware you could patent a recipe. In fact, I'm fairly sure you can't!"

Er ... actually, the food itself isn't ... nah, it's easier just to show you.

US Pat. No. 411845300

Method and device for extorting rich connoisseurs with deniability via consumable, self-destructing End-User-License-Agreement-like (EULAlike) artificial coloring decorating carbohydrate sheets.

(Anyone with an oldskool calculator may find the first seven digits look ... interesting, if typed into one.)

P.S. Ed, the default has changed back from Auto Format to HTML. :P

[ Parent | Reply to This ]



A Recipe for Intellectual Property Madness | 26 comments (26 topical) | Post A Comment
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