chip82 said:
emjay, I believe there is a difference between IP and copyrighting. IP is keeping a recipe secret, think Coke or KFC. If they were copywritten, then it would become public knowledge of what they recipe is. You cannot sue over IP unless someone has illegally obtained the information, but it is still hard to prove in court where the IP, recipe, came from. Plus, if you told your buddy, or a forum, about the recipe before you signed over the IP to another company, then it is no longer a secret within industry.
Nope. IP is intellectual property. It's not necessarily secret, and in fact, copyright is a type of IP.
If you write a book, for instance, the contents of it are YOUR intellectual property... with a few exceptions. One of these exceptions which has come up many times in this forum, for obvious reasons, are RECIPE books. With recipe books, some or most of it may indeed be copyrighted, but the actual recipe portions of these books have been deemed non-copyrightable. This is why people can legally post recipes here from Brewing Classic Styles or any other book on the market.
What you're thinking of is ALSO intellectual property, but only a small part of it, known as trade secrets.
If you want to read up a bit more on IP, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
Now... there's a tiny theoretical possibility that they COULD prevent you from brewing this beer in the future, but it has little to do with IP or any "rights" that may be conferred. It would probably have to take the form of something along the lines of a non-compete agreement. And the state laws governing non-competes are so strict that, not only do they always REQUIRE time limits (among other things), but an agreement like this doesn't seem to be enforceable anywhere anyways, as it falls outside the definition of reasonable protection. And if you want to go one step further and remove even the slightest possibility, make your recipe public BEFORE signing any such agreement, and it would be absolutely unenforceable because it would in no way legitimately protect the business (since it could no longer be considered a trade secret).
Of course, because such a document would really be virtually unenforceable, the chances that you'd even have to sign one would be slim to none. And if it does come up, you can just decide not to sign it at THAT point. But the legalese is really only there to protect themselves by having proof that you agree that you've been fairly compensated, rather than risking a legal claim that people are owed even more. There's really nothing to be legitimately concerned about, even if you DO plan on going pro.