Copyrighting Taste The EU's top court has ruled that no, you can't copyright the taste of a food. The case involved two Dutch manufacturers of spreadable cheese, one of which made the copyright claim against the other based on an earlier ruling about copyrighting the smell of perfume. But the Court of Justice of the European Union said this morning that everyone tastes things differently, so defining the "work" under copyright law isn't possible. Fortune
To be fair, if someone copyrighted the smell of perfume, I don't see how the court can then argue a signature taste can't be. "But the Court of Justice of the European Union said this morning that everyone tastes things differently". I guess smells can't smell differently from person to person.
Smell is based on objects which is uniform from person to person, for example, the smell of roses; everybody would know what roses smell like and everybody would be able to identify and agree on whether something smells like roses or not but taste can be different from person to person. Something that tastes bitter to one person might tastes sweet to another. It's not objective hence one cannot copyright something that cannot be uniformly identified.
Sorry but that's utter BS. Smell and taste are intricately mixed. To use your example, " taste is based on objects which is uniform from person to person, for example, the taste of chicken; everybody would know what chicken tastes like and everybody would be able to identify and agree on whether something tastes like chicken or not but smell can be different from person to person. Something that smells fetid to one person might smell delicious to another (like cheese, aged beans, or durian). It's not objective hence one cannot copyright something that cannot be uniformly identified." http://www.brainfacts.org/Thinking-Sensing-and-Behaving/Taste/2012/Taste-and-Smell
So according to this article, taste is based on smell. So smell is the more fundamental sensation that is more objectively based on sensory receptors therefore can be readily identified whereas taste is based on smell. You cannot copyright something that's based on something else; you can only copyright something that's original. Taste is based on smell and yet smell is not based on taste. Maybe that's why EU does not allow copyrighting of taste.