There are many things you can copyright, but a chicken sandwich is not one of them, a US appeals court panel ruled Friday.

Because of the ruling, a former employee of a fried chicken franchise is not entitled to a percentage of the profits from a sandwich he "authored," wrote Chief Judge Jeffrey Howard in the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The plaintiff, Norberto Colón Lorenzana, had filed a complaint seeking "All the earnings produced by his creation"—an amount not less than $10 million.

"The sandwich consists of a fried chicken breast patty, lettuce, tomato, American cheese, and garlic mayonnaise on a bun," the judge wrote. Colón had claimed that both the recipe and the name of the so-called Pechu Sandwich "is a creative work, of which he is the author," the judge noted.

Colón failed to persuade a district court, which pointed out that the Copyright Act protects works of authorship in eight categories, none of which includes chicken breasts placed between two slices of bread. The appeals court upheld the ruling.

"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," Howard wrote. The name of the food item is also not copyrightable, because copyright protection cannot be extended to "words and short phrases, such as names, titles, and slogans," Howard wrote.

The Copyright Act does protect literary works, musical works, dramatic works, sound recordings, architectural works, and a few other categories.

Beginning in 1987, Colón worked for the South American Restaurant Corporation ("SARCO"), a franchisee and operator of Church's Chicken restaurants in Puerto Rico, a US territory. He suggested the recipe and named the aforementioned chicken sandwich, which went on sale in 1991.

There is a trademark question in addition to the one regarding copyright. SARCO received a federal trademark for the name "Pechusandwich" in 2006, and Colón alleged that SARCO committed fraud upon the US trademark office by doing so. Howard rejected this claim, saying that Colón did not "sufficiently allege" that SARCO made any false statements while procuring the trademark.

US copyright law is too far-reaching in the eyes of some people, including filmmakers who are making a documentary about the song "Happy Birthday" and are trying to get the song's copyright wiped out. But for now the venerable chicken sandwich remains free of copyright restrictions, no matter how delicious it may be.

Correction: This story originally said the decision was made solely by Chief Judge Jeffrey Howard. In fact, it was a decision by a three-judge Court of Appeals panel.