Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food?

Techdirt is reporting that Malaysia seems to be jumping on the copyright/trademark bandwagon and attempting to protect the "ownership" of certain ethnic foods. Of course, this may just be a massive PR push in an attempt to grab some eyeballs. "Last year, around this time, we noted that the country of Lebanon was trying to claim that it owns hummus and other middle eastern foods, such as falafel, tabouleh and baba gannouj, and that no other country could produce them. It seems that other parts of the world are seeing the same sort of thing, as Malaysia is trying to declare that it owns popular Malaysian dishes, like nasi lemak."

Comments

Re:Just like Europe

[spun]

Wrong. Those are designations of origins. Champagne and Parma are actual places. You can make parmesan or champagne, but you can't call it such (in Europe, anyway) because such a designation would denote that the foodstuff actually came from that region, and if it sucked, it would reflect poorly on the region. In the USA, a syrup producer in Kansas could not call their product 'Vermont maple syrup.' Calling a cheese 'Parmesan' or a sparkling wine 'Champagne' is like calling a syrup 'Vermont.'

AFAIK, Hummus, falafel, and so forth are generic names for foods traditional to dozens of countries. Nasi lemak means 'rice in cream' and is also not a designation of origin, therefore, attempting to copyright it is ridiculous and no other country is going to honor Malaysia's demands. Not that we in the US honor Europe's protected designations of origins anyway.

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[MrHanky]

Or, rather, the Champagne district's right to Champagne and the Cognac district's right to Cognac.

There's nothing unique in the attempt to protect the designation of origin.

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[wastedlife]

According to that article, the U.S. does not generally recognize protection of the designation of origin, unless it is for products made within the U.S. Apparently you can have American champagne, but vidalia onions can only come the Vidalia, Georgia region.

However, I'm pretty sure protection of designation of origin is not covered under copywrite laws.

Re:we already copywritten recipes

[hondo77]

No, they don't. The secret recipes of McDonalds and KFC are trade secrets.