I had an idea to find formulas for possible flavored Carmex patents.......but is it legal?

This isn't really chemistry related, so I'm moving it somewhere else.

 

Patents are freely available. I don't know about Carmex, but it sounds more likely to be a trade secret than a patent if the formula is not available.

 

My understanding of patents is that the holder of the patent is granted the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, etc. the patented invention for so long as the patent lasts. Therefore, if the formula for Carmex is a patented invention, you would not be able to do any of those things without their express permission. Trade secrets differ in that the information is shared only to a small subset of people (employees, etc.) and is done so under a non-disclosure agreement. If you can reverse engineer a product to discover a trade secret, then you are within the law and you can use the information, so far as I know.

Edited December 8, 201114 yr by hypervalent_iodine

If you can reverse engineer a product to discover a trade secret, then you are within the law and you can use the information, so far as I know.

I believe this is true, but Joel-NMWJ certainly wouldn't be allowed to use the Carmex brand, or anything that resembled the way the name sounds. In fact, the closer he is to their formula, the further away he'd have to be from anything else Carmex does to sell their product. If they can prove he's trying to copy them the law is going to be in their favor.

 

That said, I have to wonder if flavoring would really work. Some of Carmex's ingredients, like camphor and menthol, are pretty hard to overcome with something else. Remove those and you really don't have the formula right, do you? It seems to me that Carmex would have given some thought to such an obvious expansion of their product line, and the fact that they don't have flavors should tell us something.

 

Joel-NMWJ, laws vary from country to country (and, in fact, so does the Carmex formula, to comply with local regulations), so you should really check with a patent attorney in your area. Any advice you get here is informed opinion at best.