The original recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken’s famous 11
herbs and spices is one of the most valuable trade secrets in the U.S. It might
have been accidentally revealed by showing an old will to a reporter.
No matter how new and innovative they might be, recipes
cannot be copyrighted or trademarked. If you were to create a new steak sauce,
for example, it does not matter how many bottles you sell. Anyone else could
use the exact same ingredients in the exact same proportions and bottle the
sauce for themselves.
In order to protect valuable recipes, they must be kept
secret and anyone with knowledge of the recipes must be legally obliged to keep
the secret. If that is not done, then the ability of the recipe’s creator to
pass it on to his or her heirs in a way that retains its value is greatly
diminished.
One of the most valuable such secret recipes is the 11 herbs
and spices that Colonel Sanders used to create his original recipe for Kentucky
Fried Chicken.
The recipe, which has been kept secret for decades, has now
been possibly revealed as NBC News reports
in “The Colonel's Secret Recipe Revealed? Not So
Fast, Says KFC.”
While interviewing a nephew of Sanders, a reporter was shown
a scrapbook that contained the will of Sanders’ second wife. On the back of the
will was printed a recipe for 11 herbs and spices the nephew claimed was the
original recipe.
KFC’s current owner denies that it is the correct formula.
If this does turn out to be the original recipe that needed
to be kept secret by Sanders’ estate, it would be ironic that it was printed on
the back of a will of all places.
If you have questions about your will or trust, please
contact one of our estate planning attorneys in Orange County at 714-525-4600,
or one of our estate planning attorneys in Corona at 951-264-5732.
Please visit
our website at www.OCElderLaw.com for
more information on wills and trusts in California.
Reference: NBC News (Aug. 26, 2016) “The Colonel's Secret Recipe Revealed? Not So
Fast, Says KFC.”
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