Can you patent a recipe?

Answer 1

In principle, a "recipe" is patentable subject matter, and, if the recipe meets all of the requirements for patentability, a patent can be granted.

HOWEVER -- for all practical purposes, recipes are not patentable, because they fail to meet the requirement that an invention be "nonobvious." The problem with a recipe like you describe is that if you wanted something that tasted like beer and tequila and lime mixed together, it would be "obvious" to simply mix beeer with tequila and lime -- obvious combinations are not patentable.

The general rule is, for a combination of things to be patentable, is that the combination must have some "unexpected" result. So, if your beer + lime + tequila combination cured cancer or something, that would be unexpected, and then it could potentially be patented -- but only for the purpose of curing cancer. You still couldn't patent the drink, and keep others from making the drink.

The only way to really protect recipes is to keep them secret -- and that only works if you actually keeop them secret, and doesn't keep someone else from reverse-engineering your drink or developing the drink on their own.
I hadn’t known how intellectual-property law worked with regard to recipes for making food, but during a conversation with Mary Anne the other day it occurred to me that computer algorithms are often described metaphorically as recipes, and that in the US, you can’t copyright an algorithm but you can patent it. (Whether that’s a good or reasonable idea, and whether the algorithms that the US Patent and Trademark Office gives patents to are actually deserving of patents, is a subject for another time.)

you could theoretically patent a recipe, but you might have a hard time convincing the PTO that it was new and non-obvious. On the other hand, it’s apparently trivial to convince the PTO that any given software algorithm is new and non-obvious, so maybe if you disguised your recipe as software it would be easier. . . . (Not that I have any opinions on this subject, nope, not me.)

Answer 2

yes. but the more common and practical protection is trademark. You are protected by trademark as soon as you sell the food item. With recipes a little change, 1/2 oz more this, 1/2 oz less that, will significantly reduce your ability to claim trademark infringement. And as with all intellectual property lawsuits, the spoils go to the player with the most money and biggest baddest lawyers.

Answer 3

Nope...