Potato Chip Patents!

Have I been on a food patent kick lately?

Possibly. But they really offer an interesting glimpse into how we eat and the nature of mass market foods.

Really, it was Lays that came up in a conversation that sparked this entry, and if they specifically had potato chip patents. Our bet was that yes, they did; I just needed to find some. (I didn't need to look to know they would have copyrights and trademarks.)

As it turns out, Frito-Lay (the owner of Lay's, a division of PepsiCo) has patents not only for creating potato chips, containing them, shaping them, de-oiling them, and frying them, to name just a few, but they also own patents for specific potato cultivars. 

Some of these patents are quite a bit more interesting than others. I'm sure many of you are thinking, "Hannah, you've taught us all that tubers, like potatoes, cannot be patented!" But they can--just not as plant patents. Utility patents for potatoes are possible; they also are possible for genetically altered plants and plants created via sexual reproduction.

Here's one of the more recently granted patents for a potato variety they own: US 10,561,114 Potato Cultivar FL 2512.

Frito-Lay patented the process for creating the unique ridged chips. Here are two of the patents for making the ridges in slightly different formations, US 4,511,586 and 4,508,739:

Opposite corrugations, with different frequencies (or number of wavy dips 'n' ridges)

Opposite phase-shifted corrugations with the same frequency and amplitude, very distinct from above

Later, they moved on to patenting the design; there are several for that, but here's an example, D495,852:

Explicitly and exclusively for the ornamental, non-functional appearance!

There's even a high-amplitude version in a later utility patent, US 9,462,818, because these ridges are EXTREME: 

Note the very different amplitude between the prior art and this patent's version

Batch control using Bang-bang control: I have no idea what it is about or what it means, but the bang-bang control sounds uncontrollable, so US 9,110,462 has the best title. 

BANG BANG seems more like what you call a process that is out of control, but what do I know

Batched control is apparently related to the thickness and hardness of chips, with batch-frying giving a more kettle cooked texture and the continuous cooking being more like commercial Lay's potato chips. Frito-Lay was working on unlocking the secret to continuously cooking a kettle-style chip; get the deets in US 4,863,750. Did they ever achieve it?

This is some serious potato chip science

You know chips like Pringles aren't really just sliced potato, right? Patent 8,632,835 proves it:

The tiny granules in the figure make it pretty clear there's no potato slice

And finally, US 11,535,438, the patent for a specially designed snack container, because we are ever reaching higher in snack containment technology: 

This design certainly wasn't over engineered...

Ugh, thanks to this, I could really go for a chip right now.