Any lawyers out there know about intellectual property laws concerning recipes?

[Anonymous]

Hi, odd situation: I love to bake, and have been asked by an acquaintance to bake several items for an event that she is having. She is going to pay me a small fee. This got me curious if it is even legal to sell items that one bakes but that one didn't invent? In other words, although I am a pretty good baker if I do say so myself , I'm hardly inventing all my own recipes; mostly I just follow cookbook recipes. I'm not worried about the legality of this particular transaction since it is such a two-bit situation. I'm mainly just curious in principle. Any lawyers out there know the answer? A quick Google search turns up nothing.

[Anonymous]

Famous Amos cookies uses the Nestle Tollhouse Cookie Recipe. You just use a different brand of flour than is specified in the recipe.

[Anonymous]

I am not a copyright lawyer, but I am pretty sure that there is no legal protection for recipes-- anyone can copy out any recipe and use it however they want (on the other hand, all the writing around a recipe like "this goes great with a glass of wine in the summer" is protected by copyright.)

Offhand, I would say the bigger potential problem for you would be that you are selling food for an event. I honestly don't know what kind of health dept. requirements there are for bakers/caterers, but it seems to me if there are any legal problems in what you are doing that would be where they come from.