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National Pork Board Threatens Breastfeeding Blogger Over T-Shirt Slogan

February 03, 2007

An Update
Jennifer got an apology from the CEO of the National Pork Board and they are trying to work this out.

If I wasn't blogging friends with Jennifer of The Lactivist, I might think this story was a joke. But really, it's true.

The National Pork Board is threatening to sue Jennifer over a t-shirt that she sells through her site. The t-shirt says "The Other White Milk." The Pork Board says this infringes on their trademarked slogan, "The Other White Meat." And just note, Jennifer sells a range of t-shirts with cute slogans in order to raise money for the milk bank in her home state.

As you can imagine, Jennifer is fighting back. In her other job-- the one where she's not running her blog-- she's an expert in internet search engine optimization. So there's a whole community of web people who are taking up her cause, blogging about this.

Now in a previous incarnation I was a lawyer. It's been eons since I practiced and I don't remember much about trademark law. But I can tell you this basic principle-- there has to be the possibility that a consumer would be "confused" by the similarity in slogans. If you ask me, I don't really think of breast milk and pork in the same train of thought. But that's just me. What about you?

Read Jennifer's post to see the original letter from the law firm, contacts at the National Pork Board in case you want to send a letter, and links to other sites that have been covering her story.