Rapid restaurant innovation despite lack of copyright

Restaurants worldwide innovate their cuisine in a rapid pace. New dishes are springing up, are copied, adapted and twisted into something new. All this happens without any kind of intellectual property. So, how is this possible, when the main argument for copyright is that if ideas are not protected, innovation will grind to a halt?

In an amusing post on the site of the New York Times, the authors of the Freakonomics blog explore why the lack of IP apparently does not reflect badly on the innovative nature the restaurant business.

The first argument is that copying in a restaurant is a completely different kind of copying than downloading Transformers 3. In the food context, copying is an incredibly analogue affair. When a chef copies a dish, he does not create perfect carbon copies and furthermore, still has put in the effort to realise every dish.

The second argument is that the dish is only part of the product a restaurant offers. People hardly choose a restaurant for one particular dish, but also factor in atmosphere, service, proximity etc. Dish copying only counts for so much.

The third and final argument that the authors put forward is that chefs, and this goes mostly for high end chefs, often have a social code in place that is based on reputation. These codes contain unwritten rules about what is allowed in copying and what needs to be attributed. Such a system actually functions as an informal kind of copyright, protecting innovation by allowing chefs exclusivity on their self imagined signature dishes on pains of being shunned from the chef society. 

The need for this informal copyright arises from the stature that chefs derive from their signature dishes and their inventive cuisine. Furthermore, high level chefs often commit considerable efforts in perfecting a new dish or a new style of cuisine.

As innovation becomes more important, the last argument shows, informal copyright systems evolve, in the form of social cultures.  We would like to extend this argument into a new one. Gastronomical innovations, at least outside of the high end circuit, generally do not come with substantial investments. Most new dishes, however delicious, are not the result of years of research or the prolonged efforts of a large cast of people. If people or companies rely on copyright to recoup investments, they will be less inclined to commit to innovation without a measure of protection. The same is also true for the reverse. If innovation comes relatively cheaply, copying becomes less of a problem. Then lead time to market becomes the principal driver for innovation.