Re: copyright in recipes

Professor Sheldon W.Halpern" <shalpern[_at_]magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>) writes
> since the recipe (and most any recipe) is not copyrightable.

I know some sort of protection is afforded to Lea & Perrins Worcester(shire) sauce. As a lay person I imagine that the difference between patents, trade secrets, trade marks and copyrights must be simple enough to explain to a schoolchild.

Micah Stolowitz answers (micah[_at_]techlaw.com)
>Why not? (assuming original, fixed in tangible medium, etc...)
>I assume you rely on 102(b), but query: Can't you distinguish the
>"work" from the "process or procedure" it describes? Isn't that
>what 102(b) attempts to do?? Making the cookies of course would not
>infringe, in view of 102, but copying an original work (the recipe)?
>Would that not infringe? Is it too "factual" ?

---

Micah  Do you mean there is a different sort of protection afforded  
to a 'process' than to a usable 'result' [of that process]?

I like to think that all information is a free gift from the Muse or  
from what or whomso-ever. Ideas seem to come from nowhere - sometimes  
after years - sometimes after minutes - the same idea can spark off  
different ones.  

Who's to say who owns what?  It's like the Red Indians being aghast  
that the White Man seems to think that people owned Earth & Air.. It  
is odd to think that spirit can be owned whether it comes through the  
airwaves or through the eye...However it comes it comes freely - and  
goes the same way.freely.HOWEVER......

How do you make a living out of sharing ideas?  Shared added value in  
input from all the owners of an idea could create for example  -  
making a turnkey solution to a particular problem that can be made &   
sold to enough end users to pay for the whole development and more.

'What it costs to get information/ideas from a-b' can and does  
justify considerable expenditure. . People can make fine livings from  
information flow - it is the flow that provides the energy in the new  
currency of the so-called Information Economy.   That's enough to pay  
for anything people want  That means that more people can make better  
livings if information itself were free.

What say you? (and can you think of a different heading? :-)

Jackie Mackay

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