Originally published September, 2008
Food makers increasingly rely on patented technologies to improve functionality, but strict regulations hamper marketing benefits.
The United States functional foods market is relatively immature compared to that of nutraceuticals. From an intellectual property standpoint, this may be because functional food technology develops from within the food industry, while nutraceuticals may come as the result of convergence between the food industry and industries with greater IP acumen.
Historically, food technology is not an area of frequent patenting relative to other technologies such as formulation science that impacts the nutraceutical and functional food markets. While patenting of food technologies has risen in recent years, most of the filings are classified more like medicines and usually cover processes such as extraction or purification rather than bare end product—and that results in the FDA treating the products as drugs. Interestingly, the FDA regulates nutraceuticals less stringently than foods in terms of what health claims can be made.
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