Be thankful for turkey cooking patents

On TechDirt, Canadian Leigh Beadon helps Americans celebrate Thanksgiving with a roundup of all the weird patents the USPTO has granted for preparing turkey. Be thankful that deboning poultry is patentable (and has been repeatedly patented), otherwise, what would incentivize butchers and chefs to innovate?

Luckily, there are plenty of open alternatives for the patent-savvy chef. Who needs those fancy new turkey cutlets when you can use this classic "method of preparing turkey ... in the form of a flat elongated slice or slices of raw fowl free from bones, tendons, membranes and skin." Mmmmmm. This patent was granted back in the 60s, so it's long since expired.
Or you could try this "method of preparing barbecued poultry such as turkey which closely simulates barbecued pork", patented in the early 70s and now free for all to follow in handy flow-chart form...

So Long And Thanks For All The Turkey Patents

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Copyfight • Food • holidays • Innovation • not food

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Conan Librarian

HOME COOKING IS KILLING THE FOOD INDUSTRY!
- warcaster
  
  Homecooking is LITERALLY like stealing food from a restaurant.
  
  Those pirate home-cookers are putting people out of jobs in the restaurant industry. I suggest 5-10 years jail time for anyone caught cooking at home, and that all stores selling food for home-cooking customers should be shut down immediately with no due process!
  
  And if that doesn’t work, as a final solution, I suggest a 6-strike plan to “educate” people that home-cooking is wrong and everyone should be buying from restaurants. Otherwise who knows what kind of immoral society we’ll turn into!
  
  And by the way, these are 100% my original ideas, and I wasn’t inspired by anything when creating them. Hmm..I should probably patent them.
  - lafave
    
    $150,000.00 fine per plate cooked at home
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

I like turkey but a recipe to make it simulate BBQ Pork would cause me to love turkey. Think I’ll try this next TG.
Roger Wagner

Imagine if they decided to extend the lifespan of patents to “70 years after the death of the author” as has been done with copyrights. The purpose of both patents and copyrights is to grant a LIMITED time period of monopoly in EXCHANGE for giving it back to the public in a reasonable amount of time. My own opinion is that copyrights have broken the social contract, and are no longer valid. As bad as patents are, at least they expire.
Daniel Ewing

someone patented a new cut of beef recently.
http://us.gizmodo.com/5910505/steak-specialists-discover-a-new-cut-of-beef
Or is attempting to anyway.
Timothy Helmuth

The planet money episode about patenting that new cut of beef Daniel Ewing mentioned is pretty excellent http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/31/160391850/episode-399-can-you-patent-a-steak
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

SPATCHCOCKING IS THEFT!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bruce-Miller/100000952005408 Bruce Miller

America has the firepower to cook every turkey on earth many times over!