A Recipe for Success Once this buzz is generated, though, how can you stop the new restaurant in town from hiring away your sous chef and stealing your chef’s “secret recipes” in the process? An establishment’s intellectual property – the very ideas that generate buzz for your establishment – is difficult to value, but crucial to protect. Luckily, the law provides protection. The nature and scope of the protection afforded, though, will hinge largely on the steps the restaurant, bar, or brewery take to protect itself. For a restaurant with a valuable idea it wants to protect, determining the type of protection needed will depend on how the restaurant intends to monetize the idea. For example, a celebrity chef who publishes a cookbook will want to obtain a copyright to ensure that only they can profit from any reproductions of the cookbook. Of course, publishing a cookbook will also require the chef to reveal his or her recipes to the world. Alternatively,
Replicate a recipe and write about the experience/outcome