Recently, Snork emailed me a .jpg image of the infamous Unicorn Meat (as shown below left). Here is the full advertisement from Think Geek:
The Unicorn Meat advert went semi-viral after it was posted on April Fools’ Day this year. But there’s an update to the innocent prank.
I’d never heard of the National Pork Board, but apparently they sniffed out a clear case of trademark infringement. On 5 May 2010, the international law firm of Faegre & Benson faxed the owners of the Think Geek website a 12-page letter, excerpted below.
“This law firm represents National Pork Board in connection with its intellectual property rights.
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.”
See, NPB owns the trademark “The Other White Meat” in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union. Unfortunately their lawyers didn’t realize that Trademark Infringement does not extend to parodies, and that unicorns don’t really exist. [Full story here, via here, and crossposted here.]
