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ThinkGeek Gets Legal Letter Over Unicorn Meat

by Jordan Yerman | June 22, 2010 at 08:28 am

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ThinkGeek's Unicorn Meat Prank Fools Pork Board Lawyers

ThinkGeek, purveyors of stuff that the guy who fixes your router would like, got a twelve-page legal threat from attorneys representing the National Pork Board. The target of the threat: the slogan "Unicorn: the new white meat", which was used for ThinkGeek's April Fools Day fake-product joke.

Inexplicably, the lawyers at Faegre & Benson thought that the slogan somehow infringed that of the National Pork Board, which is "Pork: the other white meat". This would depend on consumers confusing pork (which exists) with unicorn (which does not exist).

The Canned Unicorn Meat product page is clearly a joke: that much is instantly obvious to... anyone, really. ThinkGeek describes the moment at which they explain to the lawyers that the product is fake as "an awkward pause".

First, it's 12 pages long and very well-researched (except on one point); it even includes screengrabs of the offending item from our site. And we know they're not messing around because they invested in the best and brightest legal minds.

But what makes this cease and desist so very, very special is that it's for a fake product we launched for April Fool's day.

Here is a snippet from the Canned Unicorn Meat "product" page, which depicts a spamlike slap of meat infused with sparkles:

Excellent source of sparkles!

Unicorns, as we all know, frolic all over the world, pooping rainbows and marshmallows wherever they go. What you don't know is that when unicorns reach the end of their lifespan, they are drawn to County Meath, Ireland. The Sisters at Radiant Farms have dedicated their lives to nursing these elegant creatures through their final days. Taking a cue from the Kobe beef industry, they massage each unicorn's coat with Guinness daily and fatten them on a diet comprised entirely of candy corn.

ThinkGeek is owned by Geeknet, which also owns Slashdot and online software cornucopia SourceForge.