Legal Research

Rare: Unicorns / Not So Rare: Lawyers on Autopilot

By Simon Fodden

This is simply too good not to pass along.

The website ThinkGeek (“Smart Stuff for the Masses” — robots, zombie blood, all edges brownie pan, and more ejusdem generis) — got a 10-page Cease & Desist letter from the 475-lawyer firm, Faegre & Benson, on behalf of their clients, the U.S. National Pork Board (delightfully at pork.org). Seem ThinkGeek had made use of the phrase “the new white meat,” and the NPB took the view, through their lawyers, that this trespassed on their registered trademark, “The Other White Meat.”

The only catch? The page that the NPB got all bent out of shape about was an April Fool’s joke, advertising “canned unicorn meat.”

The C&D letter actually recites this fact on its main page (an image of which can be seen on the ThinkGeek page about this . . . episode):

We are writing to you in connection with your activities at the website www.thinkgeek.com, wherein you have been marketing a product called “Radiant Farms Canned Unicorn Meat” using the slogan “Unicorn?the new white meat.”

I wish I could say the lawyers’ letter was tongue in cheek — even pork cheeks — but alas such is not the case. Sobersides from page 1 to page 10.

I’m not sure it gets much better than that. And they say that lawyers can be replaced by automated document systems!

[via @hannasus a.k.a. Susannah Tredwell / et al.]

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on June 21, 2010 (boomark / email).