Specialty Food Brands and Intellectual Property

As a specialty food brand, your utmost concern is the taste and quality of your products. You’ve worked tirelessly to create a brand that your loyal customers associate with this standard. Protect your hard-earned reputation with intellectual property rights and enforcement.

At Heer Law we have extensive experience providing legal advice and devising legal solutions for specialty food brands.

We have advised specialty food brands with the following product types:

• Cold brew coffee
• Craft beer
• Cannabis edibles
• Gluten-free granola
• Gourmet grilled cheese
• Gourmet meat and seafood
• Superfood treats
• Workout supplements
• Italian gelato
• Spiced yogurt

Our specialty food brand services include trademark clearance searches, trademark applications, patentability assessments, patent applications, and enforcement of intellectual property rights through cease and desist letters and litigation. Our goal at Heer Law is to help you protect and grow your business, your brand and, where necessary, your reputation. By securing trademark protection for your logo and brand name, industrial design protection for your eye-catching product packaging, copyright registrations for your promotional material, and patent protection for your new and inventive manufacturing methods, our team can help you establish your place in a competitive market and ensure that your investment into your business is secure. Note that it is often advisable for food brands to consider trademark protection for not only their brand name but also the names and logos associated with their individual product lines. For example, yogurt producer Danone has a trademark registration for Danone as well as its Silhouette line of products.

With recipes being not uncommonly challenging subject matter for which to obtain a patent, our lawyers also advise clients on best practices for protecting their recipes and other intellectual property assets with trade secrets as an alternative form of intellectual property protection. A popular example of the use of trade secrets in the food industry is that of Coca-Cola, the formula for which has been a strictly held trade secret since the 1880s. Implementing these best practices helps to ensure legal recourse will be available to a company if a recipe is ever divulged. Our team supports companies implementing these practices through the preparation of non-disclosure agreements which serve to ensure that confidential information critical to your success and unique position in the market remains secret.

For more information about intellectual property protection in the food industry, or for assistance in crafting an effective intellectual property strategy which reflects the needs of your growing business, call us today.