"Can I patent this recipe?" is a frequent question from food and restaurant founders. Short answer: in Korea, recipes can be filed as food compositions or manufacturing processes, but the gating issue at examination is inventive step. Simple ingredient combinations or ratio tweaks usually fail. That is exactly why Coca-Cola has guarded its formula as a trade secret for 130+ years and KFC's 11-spice blend has been one for 60+ years — patenting would have published the recipe and capped protection at 20 years.
Are recipes eligible in Korea?
The Korean Patent Act protects both products and processes. Recipes can therefore be filed as a food composition (product) or food preparation method (process), both eligible categories. Standard claim shapes: "a food composition comprising X wt% of A and Y wt% of B" or "a method of preparing … comprising the steps of …".
Filing and granting are two different things. KIPO examiners check both novelty and inventive step, and humans have been mixing ingredients for millennia, so "a new ratio combination" alone rarely passes. Grant requires evidence of an unexpected effect — and that's where careful drafting matters.
| Claim type | Grant odds | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New ratio of known ingredients | Low | Lacks inventive step (routine variation) |
| Known ingredients + a novel ingredient or process | Medium | Possible if you can show unexpected effects |
| Novel fermentation / aging / processing step | High | Process technical novelty is concrete |
| New functional food (BP, glucose effects) | High | Pharmacology / physiology data supports inventive step |
| Cooking sequence alone | Low | Both industrial applicability and inventive step are weak |
The path to inventive step — "unexpected effects"
USPTO guidance allows recipe patents only when "the combination of ingredients used, or the way they are processed, results in a food product totally unexpected." KIPO follows the same logic — without coaction between ingredients or a new and useful function, the claim is rejected. The fix is to include quantitative data in the spec: "at this ratio, flavor stability is 30% higher than at the prior-art baseline."
Plain "oil and vinegar" is non-inventive, but "a dressing composition where a specific enzyme increases emulsion stability by 30%" can clear the bar. Comparative experiments, sensory panels, and physico-chemical measurements in the spec materially raise grant probability.
Coca-Cola and KFC — why trade secrets, not patents
Coca-Cola has kept its formula as a trade secret since 1886 — about 130 years. Patenting would have ended exclusivity around 1906. KFC has run its "11 herbs and spices" the same way since 1939. The shared logic: when reverse-engineering is hard and product life is long, indefinite trade-secret protection beats a 20-year patent that would have published the recipe.
Coca-Cola's 'Merchandise 7X' formula is held in a vault (originally Atlanta bank, now the Coca-Cola Museum), and only two people know the full recipe. Production happens at three specific US plants and bottlers are separately authorized — physical and organizational segmentation prevents leaks before they happen. The trade-secret model wins when the asset is hard to reverse-engineer and has very long market life.
Four IP options for a recipe
- Patent: best for novel fermentation/processing or compositions with unexpected effects. 20-year term
- Trade secret: ratios, processes, know-how (Coca-Cola / KFC model). Indefinite while secret
- Trademark: brand names, logos, distinctive menu names ("Big Mac", "Buldak"). Renewable indefinitely
- Design: plating, food appearance, packaging. Visual differentiation
Recommended layering
Stack rights per menu item. Use design for plating and packaging (fast partial-exam track), trademark for the menu name and brand (NICE classes 30 and 43), keep critical ratios and process know-how as trade secrets, and reserve patents for genuinely novel discoveries with measurable effects. This combination preserves the indefinite protection of secrets while still anchoring authoritative patent rights where they apply.
- Patent term
- 20 years from filing
- Trade secret
- Indefinite while secret
- Coca-Cola trade secret
- 1886 - present ~130+ years
- KFC blend
- 1939 - present ~86+ years
- Patent grant key
- Unexpected effect data required
Frequently asked questions
Can the cooking sequence alone be patented?
Process claims are eligible in theory but inventive step is steep. Routine adjustments to time and temperature are within the skilled cook's daily toolkit. A fermentation step exploiting a specific enzyme's narrow temperature window might pass — but you need to quantify yield, flavor, or stability gains in the spec.
If a franchise headquarters shares the recipe with franchisees, is it still a trade secret?
Yes, as long as franchisee NDAs and confidentiality controls are in place. The franchise agreement should include confidentiality and non-compete clauses, the recipe should be distributed only via a controlled channel, and franchisee staff should sign secrecy oaths. Disputes often turn on whether the franchisor maintained these controls — keep contemporaneous records.
What if a third party independently reproduces the recipe?
Trade secrets only protect against misappropriation. If a third party independently develops the same recipe, you have no claim. That is the structural limit and the biggest difference vs. patents. If independent re-creation is a real risk, a patent filing for the parts that meet the inventive-step bar can give you formal inventor status as a complement to the secret.
Build a food / restaurant IP strategy with iphere
Layer patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and designs per menu item — including franchise NDA templates and confidentiality controls.