Aliyev’s new initiative: to patent Azerbaijani breakfast

In Absurdistan, excuse me, I meant to say Azerbaijan; there is a new brilliant idea – to patent Azerbaijani breakfast. The initiative comes just a month and a half before the inaugural European Games – an international sporting event designed to please Mr. Aliyev and his ego. 

To please the President at home however (as if kissing up to the President isn’t enough and well observed) new ideas come to live that only make “Absurdistan” even more absurd. 

This time, it is the Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfaz Garayev who out of blue decided to patent Azerbaijani breakfast. 

Yes, he did. The ministry already received the patent in fact for this new brand called. 

European Games are used as the pilot period with only some of the hotels featuring this "special" breakfast. Later, it will be a requirement for all of the hotels, said Garayev in one of the interviews. 

Personally, while I love food and especially our traditional food I am not sure why do we need to patent something that could be served at the hotels anyway? 

As a guest I should have a choice whether to book my hotel without breakfast or with and even if I do book a night including breakfast (sometimes its included anyway) I should have the freedom and the choice to go eat elsewhere. And maybe I don’t like breakfast food for breakfast? What if I like granola? Or ice cream? Or coffee? Or what if, I simply cannot stand hotel breakfasts? 

In non - Absurdistan like countries, getting something patented is a complicated business. And when it comes to food or food recipes its even more complicated. As IPWatchdog explains it, “in most cases the typical recipe for a “killer margarita” or “the best barbeque sauce ever” will not be patentable because they won’t be unique enough typically failing on the non-obviousness requirement.” 

While food can be patented it still must be new, useful, not obvious, and meet the requirements for patentability says this website. At the end of the day, whatever it is, it has be “new”. 

 So this is where it gets tricky, as I am not sure what is “new” about our traditional breakfast? We still use the exact same butter, kinds of cheese, sour cream, honey and cream with freshly brewed tea and fresh bread that we have used for decades if not centuries? 

But then I guess it wasn’t that “difficult” for our patent institution to hand out patent for Azerbaijan breakfast brand since its all part of the same “system”. 

I am just curios as to why to patent it and make it compulsory at the hotels where they either already serve some variation of traditional breakfast or prefer not to because its additional costs for the hotel? Especially in a country like Azerbaijan where hotels are expensive and have more stars than they actually should?