In a meeting held earlier this week with the U.S Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Office of General Counsel, representatives of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) demanded that the agency defend the National Pork Board’s (NPB) of the Pork. The Other White Meat® trademarked assets from NPPC.

The slogan was sold to NPB in 2006, along with the well-known pork chop logo used with the slogan, for about $35 million. NPPC financed the purchase over 20 years. The sale was an arms-length transaction with a lengthy negotiation. Both parties were represented by legal counsel, and USDA, which oversees the federal Pork Checkoff program administered by the Pork Board, approved the purchase.

The litigation regarding the sale began when The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), along with a lone Iowa farmer and the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, filed a lawsuit against USDA in 2012, seeking to have the sale rescinded. Initially, USDA defended the lawsuit, and a U.S. District Court dismissed it for lack of standing. A federal appeals court reinstated the suit in August 2015, and USDA entered into settlement talks with HSUS before any court proceedings on the merits of the suit.

NPPC President John Weber, and CEO Neil Dierks, who has met with the USDA’s general counsel over the lawsuit, are concerned over the agency’s ambiguity over their stance on the case.

“We’re concerned that even though USDA has a very strong legal position, it isn’t defending a contract it approved,” said Weber. “We’re concerned that it already has thrown in the towel.”

Capitulation by USDA would be met with universal anger from pork producers around the country. At their recent annual meeting, NPPC delegates voted in unanimous approval of a resolution calling on USDA to rely on the judgment of the Pork Board for the management and execution of Checkoff activities. A related advisement was unanimously approved by Pork Board delegates as well.

The groups argued in the meeting that the purchase agreement, which was sold for fair market value, has made the trademarks some of the most valuable intellectual property in existence today, and that the contract offers benefits that are felt throughout the entire pork industry. They also raised the issue of allowing a single hog farmer to bring down an incredibly valuable agreement through his participation in a case that could potentially be a bad precedent for all Checkoff programs and federally approved contracts.