Intellectual property rights refer to patent right (invention right), trademark right, copyright (copyright), trade name right, trade secret right (including technical secret), discovery right, etc. People usually pay attention to patent rights and trademark rights. Now some hotels solemnly launch the signboard of "special management, patented dishes" and mark the patent number in a conspicuous position. This novel business model attracts diners from all directions, and "patented dishes" often become the first choice for mass dinners and banquets. So, patent food is not equal to specialty food? Can I apply for a patent for a special dish? Is a patent dish really unique? According to the provisions of China's patent law, whether an invention can be granted a patent right must have three characteristics: novelty, creativity and practicality. Novelty means that before the filing date, the same technical content was not recorded in domestic and foreign publications, not publicly used in China or known to the public in other ways, and no same invention or utility model was applied to the Patent Office by others and recorded in the patent application documents published after the filing date. Creativity means that compared with the prior art, the invention has outstanding substantive characteristics and remarkable progress. Practicality means that the subject of an invention patent or utility model patent application must be able to be manufactured or used in industry and produce positive effects. When examining the practicality of patent application, one of the most important examination indicators is to judge whether the patent content is reproducible. The so-called reproducibility means that technicians in the technical field can repeatedly implement the technical scheme adopted in the patent application to solve technical problems according to the disclosed technical content. After figuring out the three characteristics of patents, let's analyze whether new dishes developed by catering enterprises can apply for patents. For some dishes, such as finished dishes that can be industrially produced, the formula, production and technology have been programmed, and they can apply for patents and obtain authorization without relying on any random factors in production. The general dishes cooked in restaurants mainly depend on the chef's personal cooking skills and other random factors, so it is difficult to obtain patent authorization. In other words, "patent dishes" should be standardized by modern processing equipment, while "specialty dishes" rely on the cooking skills of professional chefs. The research and development of an innovative dish is bound to have its patentability, which mainly depends on how patent lawyers (patent document writers) explore its patentability and express it in words to obtain the patent right. The most basic requirements for the personnel who write catering patent application documents are: they must have meticulous scientific thinking in science and engineering, rigorous legal thinking, good image thinking and written expression ability. Before a new dish is developed and put on the market, managers should choose and evaluate its intellectual property protection strategy, and all the contents that must be culturally promoted, such as raw materials and cooking techniques, should be protected in the form of patents; If it is an auxiliary material or seasoning formula that affects the taste, it should be protected in the form of technical secrets. The possibility of patent authorization of cooking formula is quite large, especially when two or more cooking materials are matched, as long as this combination has patent novelty and creativity, the standard of reproducibility examination in practicality is also low; As for novelty, before applying for a patent, a patent lawyer can basically judge whether it is novelty by searching for novelty by himself or entrusting a professional information retrieval agency for analysis. If there is novelty, you can consider applying for a patent, if not, you can only protect it in the form of technical secrets; The problem of creativity mainly depends on the author's exploration and expression of the beneficial effects of this technology, which is subjective. Therefore, the possibility of patent authorization of cooking formula is quite large, which is mainly affected by the writing quality of patent application documents. In recent years, infringement disputes about whether cooking technology can be patented have emerged one after another among catering industries. At present, there is no clear regulation on the protection of cooking skills in catering industry in our country. Because the menu is not very practical, the dishes cooked by the chef in the same way taste different. Therefore, it is difficult to apply for patent protection for cooking technology. Therefore, the cooking process is best protected by trade secrets or technical methods; After weighing the pros and cons, I think it is necessary to apply for a patent for cooking technology. We should entrust a patent agent with a high level of document writing, and patent lawyers had better participate in the whole process. If a technology other than recipes is invented in the cooking process, there is a great chance of obtaining authorization after applying for a patent. For example, inventing an unprecedented heat source material for cooking food, as long as it has the three characteristics of the patent, its practical reproducibility will not become an obstacle to obtaining patent authorization, so there is no problem in obtaining patent authorization. If you need to use special utensils in cooking methods, you can apply for a patent for the utensils used. The best operation method is to apply for utility model patent and invention patent for the utensils used at the same time. The biggest advantage of this operation is that the patent for utility model generally does not exceed one year from application to authorization, and the patent authorization can be obtained quickly, which is a favorable aspect in the early stage of rights protection. After the invention patent is granted, it can be abandoned to China National Intellectual Property Administration. This method is particularly important when it is applied to the collocation of utensils and the innovation of dishes by changing utensils, because the judicial protection of product patents is absolute, while the judicial protection of method patents is relative. Patent and trademark protection of production methods and raw materials in catering industry is also one of the important ways to protect the intellectual property rights of catering industry, and it is much less difficult to apply for intellectual property protection in this form than to apply for patent authorization of dishes. For example, someone invented such a method to feed broilers. The biggest feature of this kind of broiler is that some Chinese patent medicines are added in the feeding process. Chickens raised by this patented method have the medicinal effect of this Chinese patent medicine by using the principle of pharmacokinetics, which is especially beneficial to the diet therapy of gynecological diseases. If a catering enterprise is authorized to monopolize the production and sales of this patented chicken, it will have a good value-added effect on the brand effect of this catering enterprise and can make its unique signature dishes. To sum up, the application of food patent technology in catering enterprises can not only effectively protect the processing technology of products, but also effectively protect the market, thus effectively protecting the brand and future development space of enterprises. As for the possibility of authorization, it has a lot to do with the application method.