Selling food based on other peoples recipes?

[MartinJonsoin]

Is there any form of law against selling food based on (or following to the dot) someone else's recipe? E.g. say I own a bakery, and would like to sell an unusual cake which I came across in one of my recipe books - would that be O.K?

Cheers!

Edit: Perhaps I should be more clear.. This is a more detailed overview of the situation I'm pondering:

* I own a cafe in Scotland
* A 'competitor' in London, say, has given out a book with several interesting recipes
* I would like to make some of the products from said book, and sell them in my own cafe

It should perhaps be noted that I don't own a cafe, I'm just curious.

 

[IANL]

Is there any form of law against selling food based on (or following to the dot) someone else's recipe? E.g. say I own a bakery, and would like to sell an unusual cake which I came across in one of my recipe books - would that be O.K?

Cheers!

Edit: Perhaps I should be more clear.. This is a more detailed overview of the situation I'm pondering:

* I own a cafe in Scotland
* A 'competitor' in London, say, has given out a book with several interesting recipes
* I would like to make some of the products from said book, and sell them in my own cafe

It should perhaps be noted that I don't own a cafe, I'm just curious.

I cannot see how the writer of the book would know your ingredients. I wouldn't have thought that would be an issue.

Unless you used Jamie Oliver recipe and marketed them as Jamie Oliver Cup Cakes.

 

[MartinJonsoin]

I cannot see how the writer of the book would know your ingredients. I wouldn't have thought that would be an issue.

Unless you used Jamie Oliver recipe and marketed them as Jamie Oliver Cup Cakes.

Good good, that's exactly what I thought. Thanks!

 

[paulears]

It's actually quite interesting - on doing a bit of research, the copyright is aimed at the words and photos. None of the recipe books I have here make any mention of the finished product. The only wording that that I found that could be worked on is

Except when acknowledged to be the work of other parties within the website, all website design, text, graphics, look and feel, method of operation and the selection and arrangement thereof is Copyright © 2001-2002 Delia Smith

Method of operation could relate to a particular process if it was unique to her? 'Whisk two eggs' wouldn't be a copyrightable method of operation, but some of her special techniques could be, I suppose.

However, based on some of the other copyright wording I suspect that all recipes have a history, so it would be difficult to imagine that swapping almonds for walnuts would constitute a 'new' recipe.

Anyway - don't most chefs tinker with established recipes to produce their own?

As long as you don't sell them as Delia's Doughnuts, or whatever - the ingredients are your secret recipe.