Text 23154, 153 rader
Skriven 2011-11-29 12:49:54 av Janis Kracht (1:261/38)
  Kommentar till text 23147 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: Re: Comments in Z2 fidon
================================
Hi Dale,

>> Just a note to let all here know your requests to me in
>> email and netmail to include echomail stats, locations of
>> fidonet tutorials, and other informational files like the
>> Fidonews Software List were all commented on by Michiel van
>> der Vlist in the Z2 Fidonews echo. He says each page of the
>> current issue is "filler" (literally, just about every
>> page).

> He could easily say the same about most of the pages on Björn's version
> of FIDONEWS each week.

Well, I tried to keep those pages in line with the idea of attacting people to
fidonet.. the tutorials especially.

>> He also accusses Roger of swiping that recipe for german potato salad
>> from an  online source.  Too bad Michiel doesn't know that here in
>> the United States everyone who lives next door to someone
>> with German heritage learns that exact recipe, it's no

> Doesn't he know that one cannot put copyright on a recipe?

It would seem so to me, even in Belgium.

From http://tinyurl.com/cayk56q
(www.internationallawoffice.com)


Cookery and rights protection: a recipe for disaster?

February 21 2011

Cases
Comment


The growing success of cookery books in Belgium has revived the issue of how to
protect the intellectual property in recipes. The Belgian courts have recently
considered two cases involving the protection of some of Belgium's finest
culinary specialties: a series of recipes using Belgian beers and a recipe for
a spread made from speculoos, a type of ginger biscuit. In both cases the
recipes were weighed in the IP scales and found wanting.

Cases

The LiÄ"ge Commercial Court was asked to rule on the copyright protection of a
series of recipes incorporating various Belgian beers. It began by stating that
the compilation of a recipe involves a twofold process: the creation of the
recipe itself and the description thereof (eg, in a cookery book). Both aspects
had to be examined in order to determine whether they could be protected by
copyright law.

The court held that the beer-based recipes in themselves lacked original
character because the claimant had merely reproduced recipes from the public
domain, as any amateur or professional chef could do. Considering the
presentation of the recipes in the claimant's book, the court found that the
claimant had merely listed the required ingredients and written a series of
functional instructions on how to produce the finished dish. The court found no
evidence of artistic creation in the instructions and therefore concluded that
the claimant's book lacked originality. Moreover, the court observed that many
other books containing beer-based recipes had been published before either the
claimant's or the defendant's book. On the issue of originality, the court
stated that:

    "Like many amateur or professional chefs, the claimant has mined his ideas
from the rich seam of pre-existing traditional recipes in the public domain.
Using one kind of beer - Orval, Silly or others - rather than another does not
in any way constitute a sign of originality."

In the case involving the biscuit spread, the Ghent Commercial Court was asked
to rule on the validity of a Belgian patent granted for a "speculoos product"
which, according to the first patent claim, was a spread mainly consisting of a
mixture of ground speculoos biscuits and fat.

The revocation claim was based on an assertion that the invention of the spread
did not meet the patentability requirements of novelty and inventive step,
since the essential technical characteristics of the product had already been
disclosed in prior art - specifically, in a recipe for a speculoos pie that had
been posted on a Dutch website before the priority date of the patent. The
court agreed and declared the patent invalid.

Perhaps surprisingly, the claimant did not challenge the designation of the
spread as an invention, although it is highly unlikely that the spread had the
necessary technical character. In a previous, unrelated case - which involved
an employee's claim for compensation in respect of his alleged invention of
pre-prepared meals - the Ghent Labour Court stated that:

    "Although the creations by the claimant undoubtedly have an important
social surplus value, it has not been established that they can be considered
as new. There is clearly a difference between, for example, an ALDI
vol-au-vent, a Delhaize vol-au-vent and an ordinary vol-au-vent; nevertheless,
the court is of the opinion that it has not been demonstrated that the
aforementioned recipes can be considered 'inventions'."

Comment

As the popularity of cookery books reaches unprecedented levels in Belgium,
calls for the protection of recipes as intellectual property are becoming
louder. The two recent cases demonstrate that the question has developed from a
largely theoretical discussion to an issue of practical importance.

A recipe is nothing more than a method of making a certain dish. Belgian legal
experts and case law are generally consistent in the view that methods cannot
be protected by copyright law, as they cannot be considered artistic or
literary works. On this reasoning, it could be argued that a recipe in itself
cannot be protected by copyright. However, this is not necessarily true of a
description of the method - for example, in a cookery book - which has a strong
claim to be considered as a literary work.

Most supposedly new recipes are based on recipes that have long been in the
public domain, and they are often mere adaptations of these existing recipes.
This raises the question of whether alterations to existing,
non-copyright-protected recipes are sufficient to render a new recipe original,
in the sense that it can be considered the author's own intellectual
creation.(1) The only answer is for the courts to examine originality on a
case-by-case basis.

Moreover, in most cases recipes lack the novelty and inventive step required to
enjoy patent protection. A recipe can easily be deprived of novelty by the
disclosure of an earlier recipe (eg, on a website). Only highly innovative and
non-obvious recipes - for example, in the realm of molecular gastronomy - are
eligible for protection. However, even if patent protection is granted, its
scope may be narrow - if a chef fails to think of or include equivalent or
substitute ingredients in his or her patent application, the patent will
protect only the narrow list of specified ingredients.

Although some protection should be provided to highly innovative recipes and
sufficiently elaborate texts about them, over-protection of intellectual
property may endanger one of the foundations of the culinary world - the free
exchange of recipes and ideas. As four famous chefs have stated, "culinary
traditions are collective, cumulative inventions, a heritage created by
hundreds of generations of cooks".(2) Therefore, legal experts are likely to
take an extremely wary approach to attempts to extend IP rights protection to
recipes.

 [...]

>> No, you won't see Michiel's reply to this message here unless I move
>> it in from my 'secure' area.. but if you'd like me to, I'll be
>> happy to post any replies he may post there.

> Personally, I would just as soon that you removed the blockage as you
> recently said that you would do.  I have a "next" key if I need to use
> it.

We're working on it..

Take care,
Janis

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