<p>Modern patents are often presented as part of a social contract between society and inventors. Focussing on the social is anthropocentric and foregrounding the social over nature contributes to the definition of “invention” excluding the stereotypically feminine. For example, it results in many food-related inventions from feminised industries being non-patentable, from recipes, to “traditional” means of creating new plant varieties, which are not considered “manmade”, or “abstract” or “intellectual” enough, and instead are viewed as incapable of reduction into patentese and inseparable from a singular experience. This paper problematises the gendering of the invention, and the potential resultant food homogeneity and decrease in food-production resilience, in the context of the social contract, and examines if introducing a natural contract might offer a solution. More specifically, it explores whether situating patent law in a new mythology based on a socio-natural contract would assist in de-gendering the invention in patent law, and result in a different understanding of invention and patent rights/infringement, which would be beneficial for food heterogeneity.</p>