Coca-Cola's Holy Grail

[snopes]

In a vault in the bowels of a SunTrust Bank in Atlanta lies one of the most sacred secrets in the business world: the 120-year-old formula for Coca-Cola. That is the one certainty about the mysterious recipe. Everything else surrounding it—the need for a vote by Coke's board of directors to open the vault, for example—may be urban legend. Attempts to confirm additional information with the Coca-Cola Co. are met with an obvious reply: "Well, then it wouldn't be a secret," says company spokeswoman Crystal Walker.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15463869/site/newsweek/

[Ali Infree]

Yaknow, if Top Secret Recipes can figure out KFC's 11 herbs and spices in the original recipe chicken, it is a cinch that someone could clone Coca Cola. But then what ? Do you sell it as notcoke? Do you do a complete counterfeit, finding those old 6 1/2 oz bottles and bottle it and sell it underground? (BTW, why did Coke settle on that (6.5 oz) bottle originally?)

The article is right--it is the name and the logo and the brand that is valuable, or infamous depending on your point of view.

Ali "red sauce goes better with coke" Infree

[Andrew of Ware]

Perhaps lawyers could answer this one. What if someone marketed a Coca-Cola type drink with the slogan, 'Made to the actual Coca-Cola recipe'? No doubt the makers of Coca-Cola would sue and then, in court, they would have to reveal the real recipe to show that the clone drink is not the right recipe. Would this work?

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Andrew of Ware

Perhaps lawyers could answer this one. What if someone marketed a Coca-Cola type drink with the slogan, 'Made to the actual Coca-Cola recipe'? No doubt the makers of Coca-Cola would sue and then, in court, they would have to reveal the real recipe to show that the clone drink is not the right recipe. Would this work?

Coca-cola would sue over inproper trakemaker usage and the product wouldnt be sold.

In essense that company would not have Cokes permission to advertise it as such.

Even if they had to it could be done by a judge who - to protect the companies business trademark (which the recipe is) - would never publically speak of the specifics and would not be in the public record. THe judge would review it in prrivate, make his rulling. By this point, Coke would have allready been granted a closed hearing and the details would be supressed.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Ali Infree

Yaknow, if Top Secret Recipes can figure out KFC's 11 herbs and spices in the original recipe chicken

Did they though? Has their ever been any confirmation that they did that?

[RealityChuck]

Hell, the flavorings in Coke are well known: Vanilla, citrus, and cinnamon. (No, cola has nothing to do with the flavor.) It's just a matter of mixing them together.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Andrew of Ware

Perhaps lawyers could answer this one. What if someone marketed a Coca-Cola type drink with the slogan, 'Made to the actual Coca-Cola recipe'? No doubt the makers of Coca-Cola would sue and then, in court, they would have to reveal the real recipe to show that the clone drink is not the right recipe. Would this work?

No. Coca-Cola could easily stop such marketing by asserting trademark infringement. Whether or not the knock-off drink accurately reproduced Coca-Cola's formula would be irrelevant.

The Coca-Cola formula has long since ceased to be a "secret," but the company maintains the fiction that it is because it lends a mystique to their product.

- snopes

[Jay Temple]

FWIW: I see OTC medicines at Wal-Mart all the time that say, "Compare to (Motrin, Robitussin, ...)." I assume the company that makes these does not have permission of the various companies. Ergo, I'm not sure Coke could do anything about that particular strategy.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Jay Temple

FWIW: I see OTC medicines at Wal-Mart all the time that say, "Compare to (Motrin, Robitussin, ...)." I assume the company that makes these does not have permission of the various companies. Ergo, I'm not sure Coke could do anything about that particular strategy.

They are also not infringing on a trademark in this instance. Usually showing teh result of a test. I can say that I like Pepsi (r) over Coke (r) or says that one tastes better and not get sued either.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

The recipe isn't a trademark, it's a trade secret. Setting aside that you can perfectly legally reverse engineer it, in the hypothetical Andrew poses, the recipes would be compared in camera (i.e., in the Judge's chambers) and neither would necessarily be revealed.

Seaboe

ETA: other famous trade secrets that probably aren't so secret include how they print the Ms on M&Ms and why Cheerios float.

[Grand Illusion]

Originally Posted by Jay Temple

FWIW: I see OTC medicines at Wal-Mart all the time that say, "Compare to (Motrin, Robitussin, ...)." I assume the company that makes these does not have permission of the various companies. Ergo, I'm not sure Coke could do anything about that particular strategy.

IIRC, pharmaceutical patents are only valid for 16 years, and then the patent is released to the public domain. Then, rivals or generic mfrs. can make products with the same formula without getting sued. I also believe that a company can use a rival's trademarked name (albeit with restrictions), so that they can say, "Compare to Advil."

Coke's patent is still valid, so that strategy won't work cloning Coke. One legal way that might work for companies wishing to attract Coke customers is to black-box engineer a product that tastes like Coke without actually knowing the ingerdients in real Coke. That is what BIOS manufacturers did to create IBM PC compatible computers without infringing on IBM's copyrights. They took a group of engineers who had never seen any of IBM's BIOS code and simply made their own BIOS programs that took the same input as IBM's and produced the same output without knowing exactly how IBM actually did it. Rival soft drink companies might be able to use taste testers to discern individual tastes and guess on what ingredients would make it taste like it did without knowing the actual ingredients that Coke has in it.

[Gibbie]

In The Other Guy Blinked, Roger Enrico, then president of Pepsi, wrote about how Pepsi was reverse engineering the Coke formula after Coke ditched the original one and went to New Coke. The only thing they were having trouble duplicating was the flavor that the (de cocained) coca leaves impart. They couldn't go order some because the only supplier in the world that offered them processed them only for Coke. Should Pepsi suddenly put in an order they game would have been over. So they were working to duplicate the flavor. He wrote that the ad campaign was going to be something like "Have a Coke and Smile, compliments of Pepsi." Unfortunately for Pepsi, Coke saw the error of their ways and brought back Coke before they could get done.

Gibbie