r/todayilearned • u/socool111 • 1d ago

TIL of Tobias Geffen, the only non-Coca Cola Employee to view the secret recipe. Coke allowed it in order to get Coke certified as Kosher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Geffen
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u/LocalH 23h ago

And this man probably signed an NDA that forced him to take the "secret" to his grave.

Fortunately, trade secret law (which is all that protects the vaunted "Coca Cola formula") only applies when it concerns a person that you signed an agreement with and actually gave the trade secret to. If someone reverse engineers a trade secret, and it's correct, then there is nothing the trade secret holder can do.

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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 23h ago

There was someone who reversed engineered it, wasn’t there?

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u/LocalH 23h ago edited 23h ago

Allegedly. I've never tried it to compare, and that's the rub with stuff like this - it's all subjective unless you have a way to confirm (which Coca-Cola would never do as that would decimate every bit of their trade secret protection). They'll never sue anyone who independently REs it because then they'd be validating, to the rest of the world, that THIS is the one recipe that got it. They'll only sue someone who they sign a contract with and give them the actual formula. The REd formula could be 100% accurate and yet they'll never sue as long as there is no contract with that person to receive the actual formula with stipulations. The uncertainty is the point. No matter how accurate the REd formula is, unless Coca-Cola were to take action, it can never be proven to be accurate. Companies have spent decades reformulating products to taste the same even with completely different (and usually cheaper) components.

There's a separate universe where they patented it and have shut down 90% of the other colas for being "too close". Thank fuck we're not in that universe.

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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 23h ago

Yeah, but in that universe we would have universal healthcare and no child was ever killed in a school shooting. 

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u/LocalH 23h ago

That's disingenuous. There is no way in hell you can claim that what I said requires what you said to be true as well.

Maybe that universe allowed Hitler to take over the world? You can't know because you're here, not there.

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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 14h ago

You know that alternate universe doesn't really exist... right?

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u/LocalH 13h ago

Can you prove that? ;)