

Officially our best-ever cease and desist - andreyf
http://www.thinkgeek.com/blog/2010/06/officially-our-bestever-cease.html

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noonespecial
I found out that a lot of law firms, once retained for trademark purposes
essentially operate on autopilot with low paid paralegals churning out c&d's
at anything that moves in order to rack up billable hours. Many times the
actual trademark holder isn't even aware of how their lawyers might be about
to embarrass them next.

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ck2
Never underestimate the greed of billable hours in an idle lawyer's hands.

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gfodor
Wow, I wonder how much money that cost them. Lawyers aren't cheap.

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smallblacksun
Lawyers on retainer get paid whether they do anything or not.

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CWuestefeld
Opportunity cost.

Having your retained lawyers do this keeps them too busy to, e.g., go after
the National Cannibals Club ("the other other white meat").

So at the end of the day, you've got to increase your stable of lawyers on
retainer.

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jamesbritt
IANAL, YANAL, etc. But I still want to ask: suppose regular people start using
the phrase "the other white meat" in various discussions. I used to refer to
the Nitro Ruby Web framework as the other white meat in discussions that
inevitably mentioned Rails. Suppose, as a reaction to this nonsense, it was
used everywhere, all time, so as to dilute any special association with a
particular product.

I realize in the land of the free you can get sued by near anyone over near
anything, but how likely/risky is it that blatant use of this phrase in on-
line discussions would lead to legal action or threats from pork lawyers (AKA
swine swine :) )?

While this may not be the case that sparks a populist reaction, would
encouraging people to wilfully apply some trademarked phrase as often as
possible work as a protest?

Ironically, the idea of spamming the on-line world with misapplied trademark
usage made me think of Hormel, who handled _their_ trade-name issues like
thoughtful people. The pork people may have blown a chance to make something
positive out this for themselves. At the very least, thuggish behavior doesn't
help. There are nicer ways to defend trademarks.

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stonemetal
The standard is "likelihood of confusion." so if you call Nitro the other
white meat then someone will have to be confused and think you are talking
about a meat product. Also I believe you would have to be using the name in
trade(sell a book titled Nitro the other white meat or some such) On the other
hand it would not be likely to dilute their TM since generic-ness is usually
in reference to a class of products. Nitro not being in the same class should
not dilute the name for the meat industry. aka Apple music vs Apple computers.

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praptak
That's ridiculous. Neither unicorn, nor the american white eagle, nor even the
albatross comes close to pork. Mmmmm, pork.

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mahmud
I take it you didn't try baby seals .. half-alive.

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Silhouette
The sad thing is, the NPB may have had a valid point here. Unlike most forms
of intellectual property, trademark rights _do_ degrade if you don't defend
the mark and it is deemed to be diluted. I'm not sure the ThinkGeek guys got
this, since they referred to parody as a defence, and that would normally be
used in connection with copyright. So we can all have a good laugh, but there
might be a real point about the appropriateness of various legal standards for
defending intellectual property rights as well.

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Goronmon
But ThinkGeek uses the phrase "The New White Meat" not "The Other White Meat".
Does trademarking "The Other White Meat" mean that no other product can ever
refer to itself as "White Meat"?

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chc
You can't change one word to a close synonym and then claim that your branding
is totally different. "The New White Meat" is obviously something that could
be confused with "The Other White Meat."

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jonhohle
In this case there is no product. While it did not make it through trial, The
North Face vs. The South Butt seems more intrusive:
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36334733/ns/business-
consumer_ne...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36334733/ns/business-
consumer_news/)

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neonscribe
The irony is that "The other white meat," although catchy enough to have a
found a long-term place in popular culture, is no longer a great promotion
slogan for pork. The obsession with lower-fat foods has faded with time. Food
writers complain that present-day pork doesn't have enough fat. However, even
if they choose not to use it at all, the NPB will continue to defend their
trademark (never mind whether this case truly infringes).

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socksy
It seems a little absurd that trademarks can be used like this - I can
understand for product names, and slogans, but surely if the words are
different - then you're just trademarking the _idea_.

So, if I get it right, if you refer to any meat as being white meat but not
chicken, then you infringe upon the National Pork Board's trademark? Just
checking, I'd never heard of the slogan 'til today (not from US).

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leftnode
Offtopic, but one of the best things about Thinkgeeks site is the footer.
Scroll all the way down to the bottom :)

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ibagrak
Oh, shit. Guess I am in trouble now. Posted this about a week ago in an
unrelated copyright violation:
[http://codercofounder.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/product-
manag...](http://codercofounder.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/product-management-
and-the-other-white-meat/)

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joubert
Unicorn meat is not only white, it is also kosher / halal.

