recipe question again! sorry !

JSonnab...

How does one prove that at a pleasing taste is an "unexpected result"?  Usually, one demonstrates unexpected results through some objective measure, for example, by double blind tests for drug therapies.

My concern is that it may be, at the least, "obvious to try" mixing any two flavor elements to obtain a new flavor, especially when the two flavor elements are merely off the shelf products, not raw ingredients.

JimIvey

Well, I'll give an example of what I (a mere lay person in the arts pertaining to food technology and culinary science) thought was unexpected.  Garlic icecream.  I had it several years ago at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.  I expected it to be awful (except that the long line to get some was a bit of a tip-off).

One that was a hackers' favorite 20 years ago or so was peanuts in Pepsi.  I haven't mustered the courage to try that one.

A local restaurant serves a peanut butter pizza.  I have it as a calzone.  I scoffed at it for years but finally tried it out of curiosity.  It's peanut butter as the "sauce" with mozarella, bacon, and tomatoes.  

Now, is that sufficiently "unexpected" to show non-obviousness?  I have no idea.  Remember, I'm not one of ordinary skill in the art.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that any and all ingredients are "obvious to try."  While it's obvious now, Irish cream is a relatively new liqueur due to the tendancy of the cream to curdle when mixed with alcohol -- a problem solved relatively recently, if I'm not mistaken.  Try making your own Irish cream and you'll see what I mean.

Those sorts of inter-reactions and incompatibilities are what people in food technology and/or culinary science study.

Somewhere in another thread in here, someone cited issued US patents on recipes.  So, they do exist.  So, someone at some time had successfully established that their recipe was non-obvious.  So, in theory, it could be done again.

Regards.

JSonnab...

Jim, you're a lay-person in the kitchen, and yet I bet you can answer this riddle: mixing an ice cream base with garlic and making ice cream will yield what flavor of ice cream?  How about this one: putting peanut butter on pizza (or in a calzone) will yield what flavor pizza?  Whether or not it's "good" is purely subjective and not a measure of "unexpected results" I submit.

If, on the other hand, you mixed together garlic and ice cream base (called creme anglais, if you really want to know) and got electricity, well, that might be an "unexpected result".

Mixing two food items together to yield a third food item, without some other inventive aspect, is as close to per se obvious as I think we're likely to come.  As for some of these "mixology" type patents that are out there - give me a jury and I'll invalidate each and every one.

;-)

- Jeff

JimIvey

I see your point.  

However, suppose hypothetically that those of skill in the art would say that acids in the garlic (or some other incredient) would be expected to react with the cream and cause a bile-like flavor.  Suppose further that other components of natural garlic prevent that from happening, quite unexpectedly.  

Are you suggesting that a resulting flavor can never be unexpected?  I wouldn't go so far.  For example, suppose I find a way of combining coffee and garlic to emulate the flavor of bubble gum.  Is that an expected result?

Of course, as I said from the beginning, the culinary arts are quite old and just about everything seems to have been tried at one time or another, so the remaining unexplored territory is probably very small.

Regards.

JSonnab...

Good points, Jim.  I would even go so far as to say that "recipe" patents are plentiful -- they're usually higher-tech though than merely mixing of ingredients.  Some might call them "food processing" method patents (I recall one I kept coming across in my research back at Pennie & Edmonds in the early '90's.  It was a Hormell owned patent, I think, that dealt with making processed pork patties and covered certain pressures, temperatures, etc.  Yummy).

JimIvey

A non-obvious and new combination of two known items is patentable.  How that fits in the context of a recipe, I have no idea.

Regards.

paul762

thankyou jim what I have found is, that when I mix these 2 very well known products, they produce a unique taste.

JimIvey

"Unexpected results" is one way to help show non-obviousness.  Whether a "unique taste" is an "unexpected result" is something I can't say.  I have no experience with recipe patents, so I'm not sure what other ways you can show your recipe is non-obvious.

Regards.

paul762

I think that if I told people what the 2 brands were, it would probably be a very non-obvious thing, I dont think too many people would try to mix these 2 things together, but if they did, they would be very surprised, as I was! I just have to progress with this somehow and without much knowledge on the subject also, im just a normal guy with an idea.

thanks again

JimIvey

Please don't take this the wrong way, but being "just a normal guy" might work against you here.  Note: I said "might."

The test for obviousness isn't what obvious to "many people" but instead what's obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.  In terms of recipes, I really don't know what "the art" is -- food technology or culinary arts.  They may be the same, for all I know.  Then, what's the level of "ordinary skill"?  I don't know that either for that particular art.

I'm not saying that it's not patentable.  I'm not saying that at all.  I'm just saying that there is some skill involved in putting your best arguments forward in seeking a patent, and that there are patent attorneys/agents out there who can help you do that.  I'm also trying to help identify some of the sticky issues you should expect to face.

My general perception is that recipe patents are challenging since there has been so many and such diverse combinations of ingredients since the beginning of humanity.  

I hope that's helpful.

Regards.