The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today issued a ruling on a suit challenging the sale of the Pork. The Other White Meat® trademarks. The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) sold the trademarks to the National Pork Board in 2006. The following statement may be attributed to Ken Maschhoff, an Illinois pork producer and president of the National Pork Producers Council.
“We are conducting a thorough review of the decision and evaluating our options. We are disappointed that the court partially denied the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s motion to dismiss this frivolous lawsuit, one that was never based on a legitimate legal challenge to a federally approved transaction but instead was brought by an anti-meat activist group intent on eliminating meat consumption and harming a vast U.S. industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Americans and feeds billions of people at home and abroad.
“NPPC enjoys the strong support of pork producers nationwide. Regardless of the final outcome in this case, we are well positioned to continue fighting for the livelihood of farmers and others in rural America.”
The court’s decision followed a motion last January to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which authorized the transaction as part of its oversight responsibilities under the 1985 Pork Act. The Pork Act set up the pork checkoff program and established the National Pork Board to administer it. The USDA’s motion argued that the lawsuit, filed by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and two other parties, lacked merit, was barred by a six-year statute of limitations, that the plaintiffs failed to establish standing to file the lawsuit or show that they were harmed by the sale of the trademarks, and that the agency’s evaluation of the sale of the trademarks showed they provided significant value to the pork industry.
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