Unlike industries such a entertainment and publishing , the food industry is one filled with plenty of innovation but not much intellectual property protection. As shown in Paul Bicknell’s article “Copyright in the food industry; a recipe for disaster?” (http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/20-APR-(2)-recipes.htm), a recipe book technically could be protected as a literary work, but a list of ingredients would have a difficult time meeting the requirements of originality and the final food product a person makes after following a recipe would not be able to receive copyright protection.
However, many argue that the food industry continues to flourish with creativity despite the absence of copyright protection. An example of this is the rise of the “Korean taco”, which Professors Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman have written an interesting article on, called “Who Owns the Korean Taco?” (http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/07/02/who-owns-the-korean-taco/). A few years ago, Mark Manguera and Roy Choi started a business together in which they sold tortillas stuffed with Korean barbecued short ribs out of a truck, calling it Kogi. It became so successful that other businesses began adapting not only the Korean taco truck, but also the Korean taco, with food chain Baja Fresh, for example, adding Korean tacos onto their menu.
As mentioned in Raustiala and Sprigman’s article, “copying the Korean taco is not like copying the latest Lady Gaga download”, and the creation of the Korean taco raises questions about innovation in the food industry such as “Why do chefs continue to invent new dishes when others are free to copy them?” Why does creativity thrive despite not only the lack of strict intellectual property protection, but also the unrestrained copying and recreation of dishes that often occurs? Should we strength copyright laws? Are they even needed? It’s interesting that even though copyright protection does not exist in the food industry, the field is still thriving with competition and innovation, challenging our preconceived ideas of copyright’s role in the process or creating new content.
