Licensing a National Brand for a New, Unrelated Product Line...

[Chitown]

Fastlaners,

I'm in a coffee shop, yesterday, and the baristo comes up to me and asks if I've tried his new ice blended drink made with a nationally popular Brand -- which shall remain nameless, for obvious reasons.

I respond, "No. I haven't".

He goes on to say that he went through four packages of the Brand because customers were going absolutely crazy over the concoction. He mentioned that he would like to sell the idea to Starbucks.

I gently reminded him, "Not without permission from the Brand. They'll get legal on you in a heartbeat". I suggested he set up a company to exploit the idea and approach the Brand about a licensing agreement for the new product, since it's an unrelated line to their current business.

Any ideas as to the best way to make this happen?

Thanks.

 

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[Chitown]

Am I to assume no one on the forum has any experience in this area?

 

[Likwid24]

I thought about something similar a few years ago. I came up with a Tiramisu flavored iced coffee that I was making for friends and family. They loved the taste and wondered if I could pitch it to Starbucks as a new flavor. Back then I didn't have the fastlane mentality and I never wound up doing any research on it.

I'm wondering if he can get a Patent on the recipe as a "Trade secret". Similar to what Coca~Cola has for their recipe for Coke. You might want to seek the legal advice from a patent attorney on this matter.

 

[garyfritz]

You don't patent a Trade Secret. A Trade Secret is just that -- a secret. You keep the recipe hidden from competitors so they can't copy you. That's valuable for somebody like Coke or Starbucks but it's not very useful for a baristo.

By contrast a Patent is the involved expensive thing we're all familiar with. Part of the application is full disclosure of the recipe / process / etc. It becomes public domain but you have rights to it.

I like your original idea -- approach the company, secure rights to use their product, THEN see if you can license it to Starbucks or whoever. Actually Starbucks is probably not a good target because they probably formulate their own stuff and wouldn't want to buy the Brand stuff. But they might go for it, or you could approach smaller chains.

 

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[Likwid24]

You don't patent a Trade Secret. A Trade Secret is just that -- a secret. You keep the recipe hidden from competitors so they can't copy you. That's valuable for somebody like Coke or Starbucks but it's not very useful for a baristo.

Sorry but your wrong there. It's not necessarily a "patent" per say, but it acts as one and protects you legally against anyone who gives away your secret recipe or formula. Coca-cola hold intellectual property rights one the recipe in the form of a trade secret.

 

[Chitown]

Likwid24 and Garyfritz,

Thank you for your responses. I'll really appreciate it.

 

[garyfritz]

Likwid24, read the wikipedia entry on trade secrets. Relevant excerpts:

...a trade secret is information that:
* is not generally known to the public;
* confers some sort of economic benefit on its holder (where this benefit must derive specifically from its not being generally known, not just from the value of the information itself);
* is the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.

In other words, it's a secret, and you try to keep it that way with NDAs or other arrangements. The only "protection" is that you do your best to keep competitors from learning the secret.

The fact that it's a Trade Secret doesn't provide any protection in and of itself, unlike a patent. My understanding is that by attempting to maintain the secrecy, by NDAs &etc, you have a stronger legal position to prosecute someone who violates their NDA.

there is no protection once information protected as trade secret is uncovered by others through reverse engineering, for example, whereas patent has a guaranteed time of protection in exchange for disclosing the information to the public.

So if somebody can figure it out without breaking your secrecy, the Trade Secret provides no protection whatsoever.

Patent = publicly disclosed (at least at filing time), legal protection (at least in the US) against infringers, limited time window

Trade Secret = kept secret, enforced with NDAs, lasts as long as you can keep it secret

 

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