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COOKING UP A LEGALLY PROTECTED MEAL: A study on IPR in the Food Industry.
Our daily lives consist of a collection of food items being cooked, baked and garnished to our liking. Every single meal is made up of essentials from the domestic or often, foreign market, and is prepared to meet our tastes. Yet, no matter which corner of the world you reside in, or what cuisine you prefer, it is mandatory that you derive your fundamental ingredients from the products made available in the accessible food industry.
The food industry can generally be understood as an intricately woven network of distinct producers, farmers, agriculturists and businesses, that together through their supply provide to population of the world, much of the food that is consumed by them. And even though, there exists no officially construed definition of the same, it can be understood as to cover all of the aspects of the production, sale and consumption of food. It takes under its ambit, everything from the raising of crops to the packaging, labelling, storage and distribution of agricultural products and items.
Now the question arises as to where IPR comes into the picture. Intellectual Property Rights, more commonly referred to as IPR, is basically the protection given to creations of the human mind and imagination. It grants security and ownership of rule to creators, entrepreneurs, and designers over concepts, conventions, ideas, symbols, designs, literally work including art, music etc., names, and images or pictures used. It provides them the exclusive use of the same, and prohibits others from using the creation of someone else as their own in order to gain the benefits of goodwill, implement the same idea or confuse consumers. At the end of the day, IPR exists in the form of patents, trademarks, copyrights and carries the value of a business asset.
Now as to where the food industry and IPR meet, it is inevitable that every food sector consists of multinational corporation, to start-ups to individual sellers. And each of the same, regardless of their size, create for themselves potential opportunities to achieve IP rights. Every single distinct product, every mixture of spices used, every unique design of packaging and labelling and the composition and making of the food provides the producer and owner the chance of getting protected from competitors. The forms of IPR relevant to food sector, include the following:
- Patents
- Trade Marks
- Trade Secrets
- Design Rights
Patents are the form of IPR that strive to protect inventions. They aim to provide legal protection to newly discovered and invented procedures, processes, compositions, machines, manufacturing methods and or any improvements made to the same. In the food industry, this sort of protection can be granted to a particular recipe or mixture constituting a specific food item. What must be kept in mind, is that in order to achieve the same, the invention or idea must be something new and novel, it must also be something unique and not so much as obvious.
An example of the same would be, protecting the recipe of a newly launched energy drink, that is in no doubt unique and has a distinct taste, composition and mixture.
Trade Marks are the form of IPR which grants exclusive right of use of a particular word, a distinguishing phrase, a specific symbol or a curated combination of the same, that provides identification to a good or service and is what helps consumers identify the product. They endeavor to protect the distinguishing factor amongst products and services, and the feature that actually results in consumers building confidence and trust in a particular brand. It must be acknowledged that the more uniqueness and creativity a name/logo or symbol is, the easier it is to obtain a trademark over the same.
An example of the same would be, the protection of the red and white logo of the infamous cola drink, Coca-Cola, as well as the design and shape of the bottle. Another would be the half-eaten apple of the tech company Apple. The distinctly written name ‘Maggi’ in its known shades of red and yellow can also be protected. Essentially, it protects the very identity of a business’s product or service.
Trade Secrets are a form of IPR that protects the advantage and edge that one business has over the others. It is any formula, procedure, composed information, mixture, practice or process that is not known and cannot as such be ascertained by competitors, but if determined would give them an economic gain and result in a loss to the original business.
An example of the same would be the protection of the specific mixture of spices used by the reputed fast food chain KFC. The specifics of the spices are only known the selected employees who are also made to sign contracts that prevent them from ever releasing details of the same.
Lastly, Design Rights are a form of IPR where protection is granted to the particular set of existing designs and includes the lines, textures, materials or even specific design used. It comes handy in the protection of the particular covers of the food items and its design of packaging. In order to obtain such a right, one must ensure the uniqueness of their design and ensure that is it not evidently similar or a copy of an already existing product.
An example of the same would be very specific design of the chocolate bar – Toblerone. It is unique and can be easily distinguished from other chocolate bards available in the market.
IPR rights at the end are useful to creators and inventors, designers and artists and most significantly, businesses. They combine the legal, business and food industry in a way no one could possible imagine a hundred years ago. The nexus amongst the same are strong and stable, and the rate at which creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation are growing, there is only scope for more and more development.
