Culinary Copyright: A Recipe for Disaster?

English muffin croutons in the Caesar salad. When Rebecca Charles first showed her mother's recipe to her then sous-chef Ed McFarland, she warned him, "You will never make this anywhere else." Six years later, McFarland stood by as his lawyer declared, "I didn't know Caesar salad and lobsters are protected under the intellectual-property laws." Charles, chef of the upscale New York seafood restaurant Pearl Oyster Bar, had accused McFarland of appropriating dozens of recipes, plus the overall concept and lay-out of her New England-style seafood restaurant in his restaurant, Ed's Lobster Bar, just over a mile away. This past April the former colleagues settled out of court.