Pickled Intellectual Property
Both patents and trademarks get mentioned in a relatively short NYT article about "Kool-Aid Pickles":
... The school sells Kool-Aid pickles from the popular red flavor family at its fund-raisers. “They’re easy to make a gallon,” Ms. Williams said. “You pull the pickles from the jar, cut them in halves, make double-strength Kool-Aid, add a pound of sugar, shake and let it sit — best in the refrigerator — for about a week. The taste takes to anything. A while back I made a mistake and bought a jar of pickle chips instead of halves or wholes. Came out fine. This whole Kool-Aid pickle thing is going so good, you wonder why somebody hasn’t put a patent on them.”
No patent application has been filed, but the name Kool-Aid is a trademark owned by Kraft Foods. Upon learning of the pickles, Bridget MacConnell, a senior manager of corporate affairs at Kraft, recovered, and then pronounced, “We endorse our consumers’ finding innovative ways to use our products.” ...
Sounds like the process for making these pickles has been percolating through the public domain for a while now, so patentability would be tricky, and presumably they could be referred to as drink mix pickles if Kool-Aid fears having its trademark "dill-uted."
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