Hi,

I found a great idea on Pinterest that was posted by Cake Journal.

can i use this recipe and the whole look and have it patented?

AHahaha, cake trolls make me laugh :)

Possible?  That answer can be answered here:  http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2012/02/10/the-law-of-recipes-are-recipes-patentable/id=22223/ 

Should you' ethically take someone else's intellectual property, claim it as your own, and protect it from use by others including the person who created it?  If you don't know the answer to that question, you are beyond any help I could offer.

Of course you can.  You can either call a patent lawyer, or learn how to file the patent yourself.

Liz

But the real question is should you patent someone else's intellectual property . . .

Liz

AHey, why not. A photo thief the other day said, in defense of her actions, and I quote, "anything on Google is fair game." Yep...sounds about right to me. :-P

ABut let's see it first so we can all get the jump on you.

AIt typically costs around $10K to file for a patent. Best of luck to you.

Past discussions:

http://cakecentral.com/t/546303/is-it-possible-to-copyright-or-patent-a-design

http://cakecentral.com/t/387813/copyrights-on-a-cake-design

  I am amazed that you would come on to a cake site and ask bakers/designers who spend much of their time, money and ingredients to come up with new and innovative ideas, and ask them if you can patent an idea that is clearly not your own because you saw it on Pinterest.    Really?  Please let us know you're not serious.

ASo the best answer for you is..no, not a good idea.

Thank you very much for your answer!!

I didn't mean copy the whole recipe completely, just change it enough to make it mine, which is what everybody does. all recipes come from one or another.

sometimes you get a great idea looking at something that just strikes you.

i appreciate your help!

Recipes are exempt from copyright laws. From the US copyright office:

"Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of ingredients. Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients such as those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions. Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary expression—a description, explanation, or illustration, for example—that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook."

So, the only thing that could possibly be a problem is copying the instructions verbatim.  As long as the instructions are described a little differently, not a problem sharing the recipe.  As recipes are made to do.

And this is what a patent is:

"A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions. 

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention in the United States or "importing" the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention."

So, since you didn't invent it, prolly not.

I am sorry to have offended you.

most recipes come from somewhere, and when they are posted they are for everyone to use.

i just saw a great idea in there and wanted to make it.

I see no problem with that.

Don't you ever see a great idea somewhere and find something that inspires you to make it your own?

i just wanted to know if its possible to do so.

AUm, wow. A bridge somewhere must be unattended...

I'm thinking - if this fantastic idea is on Pinterest.... then possibly millions have already seen it

If it is THAT simple to replicate/change - WHY would you want to 'patent' it?   what for?   to SELL to somebody else?

Who would buy it? - they've already seen how it is done on Pinterest !

I am just confused - can't understand your thought process on this at all...... did you forget to take your meds?

You are soo right!

I need to have my head examined to have asked this question.

I should have asked it differently.

like: is it possible to patent a recipe?

a previous forum answered it already. pretty complicated stuff.

so i keep my head down and quietly crawl back into my kitchen......:)

A

Buahahaahahahaaahahhahahaaaa!

She probably should have left the Pinterest part out and just asked about patenting a recipe.  If interested in profiting from recipes, publishing a book/ebook is the way to go.

Why is that a myth?  There are a lot of successful cookbook authors out there.  Not all are successful, but many are.  The Cake Bible, for example....something tells me that author has done quite well.  Perhaps not now, with all of the second party and used books available, but upon publication, yes.  I used to work in the publishing industry.  

Applegum, Pinterest has just taught me that you can put chicken wire on a cake.  It is not a choking hazard as it is too big!

A

You mean you can't just throw together a few recipes, self-publish, then sit back and watch the money roll in? :grin:

A

There are many, many more unsuccessful authors (in all genres) than successful authors, if you worked in publishing you should be familiar with the long tail phenomenon.

It is much easier to profit by using a recipe to make a product than reselling the recipe itself.

Yup, Jason, but I was only familiar with successful authors.  Yeah, it's easier to make a product than sell a book, but some people do succeed with cookbooks, so I look at them as examples.  Never heard of long tail in my life.

A

The long tail refers to a market with a tendency to have a small number of hits and a much larger number of non-hits. Most of the revenue and profit in the market is concentrated in the hits, but if a retailer can successfully make the non-hits available to their target niches at minimal cost, the sheer aggregate number of non-hits (the "long tail" of the revenue curve) can make this profitable for the retailer.

The book publishing industry is a textbook example of this phenomenon, which Amazon.com exploited to great success -- but of course aggregating tiny revenue streams doesn't really help the authors.

A higher level version of this is called the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule, in that 80% of effects (profits) come from 20% of the causes (products).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail