Plot Thickens In “Other White Meat” Trademark Lawsuit

The pork producer trade group, the National Pork Producers Council’s (NPPC), was granted its request to intervene in a festering lawsuit filed in 2012 by the Humane Society of the United States against the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary Tom Vilsack. The Humane Society took issue with the terms of a trademark sale, whereby the slogan “The Other White Meat” went from the NPPC to the National Pork Board, with the Pork Board, a quasi-governmental organization, paying the NPPC a total of $60 million at $3 million a year. The Humane Society contends that the slogan, which was discontinued years ago, isn’t worth near what the NPPC is being paid and the effect of the deal is to route money to a lobbying trade group that fights the efforts of the Humane Society to advocate for humane treatment of farm animals.