ThinkGeek's Best Ever Cease-and-Desist Letter

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 21, 2010 @11:17AM from the good-source-of-sparkle dept.

ThinkGeek, sister company to Slashdot, received a meticulously researched (except on one point) 12-page cease-and-desist letter from the National Pork Board. What had the meat lobbyists up in arms was an April Fools product from the TG catalog: Radiant Farms Canned Unicorn Meat, whose copy included the line "the new white meat." The NPB figured this was confusingly similar to their trademarked "the other white meat" (an advertising slogan the pork industry is considering retiring anyway). Geeknet, parent company of Thinkgeek and Slashdot, issued a press release apologizing for any confusion; you can read it on ThinkGeek's site (PDF), because the newswires refused to distribute it for some reason. Oh, and ThinkGeek has no intention of taking down the protected parody.

2 of 264 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:Why did this make the front page? by sheetsda · 2010-06-21 11:29 · Score: 5, Informative

Would you have known about the $10 off any $40 order if it wasn't on the front page? ;)
Article reading FTW!
Re:Before having a knee-jerk anti-lawyer moment... by RuralJuror · 2010-06-21 11:54 · Score: 5, Informative

That would be true if this were a real product.
I am an IP lawyer (IAAIPL). From the letter of demand, it appears that the NPB hasn't actually twigged that this is an imaginary product. Therefore even if ThinkGeek has used their trademark, they haven't used it as a trademark - i.e. to indicate the origin of a product - because there is no actual product. (I tried ordering it, it doesn't let you.)
Funnily enough, it might be different if they were shipping something, even if it was just a novelty can of dog food.