culinary innovators, becomes even more a tool for promoting gastronomic products. The issue is not new to legal debate and legal interventions. In ancient Rome, specific legislation was enacted to protect recipes. The law, known as the Sibari Law, dates back to 510 BC and stated that ‘if a chef creates an original and elaborate dish, no one other than the inventor is authorised to use the recipe before one year has passed, so that the inventor has the exclusive right to profit from it within that period, and so that third parties are induced to make an effort to distinguish themselves for inventions in the same field’. The content of the legislation is of great interest. The method used by the ancient Roman legislator seems almost to resemble modern patent law mechanisms, with a real monopoly granted to the inventor of the recipe. The wording of the Sibary Law recalls contemporary debates on the need for stimulating innovation, economic growth and the development of industry. The Romans’ objective was clearly to promote the creation of new recipes and contribute to continuous experimentation in the field of gastronomy. For a society keen on food and pleasures as the Romans, there was no better way to encourage the creation of new dishes. From a legal point of view, the legislation was linked to a monopoly right for a limited period of one year, which was a sufficient time to encourage other chefs to elaborate different recipes. Being able to create a fashion or trend in cooking, benefiting from a period in which a chef benefits from a monopoly on the use of the recipe, mirrors, in a certain sense, the competitive advantage granted by the period of validity of patents in modern legal systems. The comparison is fascinating and facilitated by the truly unique features of the Sibari Law. Nowadays, of course, things have changed a lot, but interest in gastronomy has certainly not declined. Chefs and industries continue to have a significant interest in protecting their recipes. From this point of view, it is necessary to distinguish between two clearly different cases, corresponding to distinct forms of protection. The first concerns the legal protection of recipes that are in some way known to the public. The chef has created a new dish and its ingredients, preparation methods and perhaps even the quantities of the ingredients are disclosed. In this case, one may question whether the recipe can be protected by copyright and, for certain specific aspects, even by patent. In the second scenario, however, the recipe is secret, and the inventor has the possibility of protecting the recipe as a trade secret. 210 PAOLA GELATO | STEFANO VERGANO
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