Trade Mark Decision Relies on Study by Gronstedt and Caywood for Ruling

The case is a mark infringement case
Hearing: Mailed:
December 16, 2009 June 11, 2010
Bucher
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
________
National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council
v.
Supreme Lobster and Seafood Company
________
Opposition No. 91166701
against Serial No. 76574162

One quote of many praising the research.

The preponderance of this
evidence convinces us that this slogan, THE OTHER WHITE
MEAT, has become part of the fabric of popular culture in
the United States. We find especially compelling the
evidence from the Northwestern Study of 2000 showing that
only four other consumer slogans in the United States had a
greater degree of recognition than THE OTHER WHITE MEAT.
[Ex. 338] This finding supports a conclusion that
opposers’ mark is extremely well recognized by a broad
spectrum of consumers, and that this degree of recognition
among the general consuming public of this famous mark also
supports the conclusion that dilution by blurring is likely
upon the introduction of applicant’s slogan into the
marketplace.


Northwestern Study of 2000
As noted above, applicant objects strongly to
opposers’ submission of a study conducted in the year 2000
by outside academics at the School of Integrated Marketing
& Communications at Northwestern University (the
“Northwestern Study”). Applicant argues that this study
should be excluded inasmuch as the working papers for the
survey were inadvertently disposed of during an office move
well before this litigation arose, because the methodology
for the survey was flawed, and because the time frame of
the survey allegedly renders it irrelevant and
prejudicial. We disagree.

A brief on the case will be forthcoming along with a 2010 replication of the research.