Re: Recipes?

On Wed, 06 Jan 1999, Peter D. Junger <junger[_at_]samsara.law.cwru.edu> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 31 Dec 1998, Alan Divack <a.divack[_at_]fordfound.org> wrote:
> >
> > My understanding was that they are too "useful" to meet the test, and
> > are viewed and mere encapsulation of ideas, and hence not protected.
> > This is a propos of whether or not it is an infringement to post
> > recipes on an electronic bulletin board.
>
> What is the difference between a recipe and a computer program?

I think that a lot of the responses to this took the superficial approach. Rather, I think that the underlying question is why do we have copyright protection for software and not for recipes? After all, both are comprised essentially of the same thing: a set of functional steps.

The basic difference (IMHO) between recipes and computer programs is one of size. Software typically has several orders of magnitude more steps or elements. Partly because of this, there are often a number of different ways to do pretty much anything on a computer. Remember, it is the expressive combination of functional steps or elements in software that is protectable.

Thus, I would contend that if you were to apply the Altai type of Abstraction/Filtration/Comparison analysis to recipes, you would continue to have the result that we have seen in the law: that recipes for the most part are not protected by copyright.

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