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[nomi786]

I am working on new steak sauce .I am just wonding and hope someone can help me that do I need to patent it or copyright in order to protect it. It will be stack sauce with special ingredents. Any help will be really apperciated

Thank you in advance.

[mk1023]

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to names, titles, short phrases, ideas, systems, or methods. A recipe is theoretically patentable, but in practice you'll have a hard time convincing the USPTO it's nonobvious.

The best way to protect a recipe is to keep it a secret. Unfortunately that wouldn't stop someone from reverse engineering your product.

[nomi786]

Thank you very much mk1023. As you mention the best way keep the recipe secert but once you sell it in market then you need to tell all ingredents in steak sauce. Once people know the ingredents of some food product then they can copy it and may be come up some thing like that and take your business away from you. What will you suggest in this case ?

I am planning to market it and i have to make a label with all ingredents in it because people like to knowwhat ingredents are in this steak sauce before they buy ..

Any advice in this case ..

Thank you once again for your help

[still_studying]

Nomi, you won't need to disclose ALL of the ingredients.  If you buy a few bottles of your competitors' products, you will notice that essentially all of them list "spices" as ingredients.  They don't list "ground turmeric, ground rosemary, ground nutmeg, ground crunchy raw unboned real dead frog" (sorry, my Monty Python (*) habit is showing).

What you DO need to disclose is nearly everything else, especially preservatives, any potential allergens (e.g., if you use peanut oil), and so on.  You may or may not be able to obfuscate certain ingredients, i.e., if you use "balsamic vinegar", you might or might not be able to get away with just disclosing "vinegar".

You'll need/want to discuss this with someone familiar with labeling requirements before going commercial.  I'm not even sure if that's a USDA or FDA issue.  In any event, they do try to allow you enough leeway to hide your unique flavorings from your competitors, while also giving consumers some idea of what they're eating.

(*) http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode06.htm

[nomi786]

Thank you very much for all the information "still_studying". I really apperciate your time and help to answering my question. Would you or some one can guide me where I can find more info about labelling of my product and other important info like where I can order my jars for Steak Sauce and how should I market my product and where i need to go t oregister my product or get approval from Govt. department in USA.

Any other forum I need to join to find this information or something like that ? Any feedback will be really apperciated.

Thank you once again in advance