Gourman: Gastronomic Intellectual Property

The legal publication Lexlatin.com raises and develops an interesting discussion about intellectual property in gastronomy, asking the question: Can a dish or a recipe be patented? Should it? In Latin America, for now, this is not possible. In most legislations, the copyright of a recipe can be registered, as a literary work. However, this does not protect the execution of the recipe in a restaurant by a cook other than the one who registered it, that is, the execution of copies or imitations. It will only protect the material where it is embodied, books, brochures or other instruments, as well as the images used in such cookbook.

As the execution of the recipe is not protected, it is not possible for its creator to take advantage of the economic returns of its authorship in the gastronomic plane, beyond the literary one. He will not be able to receive royalties from restaurants and chefs that have the aforementioned dish on the menu, as a musician receives for the composition of his songs when they are replicated.

The industrialized food business is much more protected in almost any legislation than the restaurant business, where any great chef who creates a novelty signature dish can be copied.

The publication reported that there are very few examples in court, counted on the fingers of one hand, that favor these creations. In the Netherlands, a court ruled that there was plagiarism by a large company that manufactured a box of fine chocolates following exactly a recipe published in a book.

If a product, a song, an invention, Isn’t it logical that a signature dish should also be protected? Many of these have promoted and even changed gastronomy, such as Tomas Keller’s oysters and pearls, or further back in time, Careme’s vol-au-vent, or Luis de Bechameil’s bechamel sauce. Shouldn’t their authors be able to reap the revenue from their creations?

What about the gastronomy of a region or country? Shouldn’t they be protected with appellations of origin?

How many times has the reader entered a restaurant that claims to be Italian, French or Mexican cuisine, and at the end of the experience finds that there was nothing Italian, French or Mexican about it?

If almost all legislation protects products such as wine or cheese, among others, certifying their geographical areas and production methods with denominations of origin, thus assuring the consumer of minimum limits of quality and flavor, Shouldn’t legislation protect national gastronomic identities as well? An open discussion. (EITHER)