The chicken sandwich is a food of the people, and you are free to create your own version when and whenever you feel like it.

How can we be so sure? Norberto Colón Lorenzana, a man who filed a copyright claim on the fried-chicken sandwich, was denied by the US Court of Appeals.

Lorenzana claims that, as an employee of Church’s Chicken in Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory), he came up with the idea and name for the chain’s popular ‘Pechu Sandwich,’ or fried-chicken sandwich, which debuted in 1991 and is still being sold today. Lorenzana was seeking no less than $10 million in back pay from the sales of his fried creation.

church's

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

His complaint was shot down by Judge Jeffrey Howard, who said,

“A recipe—or any instructions—listing the combination of chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and mayonnaise on a bun to create a sandwich is quite plainly not a copyrightable work.”

That seems like a fair enough statement, given that anyone who has ever woken up with leftover KFC and some hamburger buns has most likely created their own version.

Even if Lorenzana doesn’t exactly deserve a trademark, he absolutely deserves a raise or a bump up to corporate for thinking up the recipe for the Church’s chicken creation.

[via Ars Technica]