> what exactly being owned is.

Thank you, this is beautifully put and very astute. Does a recipe, a culmination of a lifetime of experience, technique, trials, errors, and luck constitute a form of someone/thing's person-hood such that it can be Intellectual Property.

It depends. First I think we could make a distinction between not-intellectual-property and intellectual-property-with-no-protection but that doesn’t seem to be what you’re getting at.

Have you taken reasonable steps to keep it secret? It could be a trade secret and if course if you steal the recipe for KFC’s herbs and spices, you will be liable for civil damages for your misappropriation of their trade secret.

And if you describe a recipe in flowery prose, reminiscing about the aromas in grandmas kitchen, of course that prose is copyrightable.

Should you invent a special kind of chicken fry mix and give us a fanciful name, the recipes identifier if origin - its trademark -could be protectable.

But the fact that your chicken fry mix is made of corn starch and bread crumbs is a fact, like a phone book. Under most circumstances, not protectable.

ianyl tinla