Hormel sues to protect "Spam" trademark

[davidm]

From here:

US food company Hormel Foods has filed a legal challenge with the US Patent and Trademark Office in a bid to prevent Seattle software firm Spam Arrest from using the Spam name that Hormel has used for decades on its canned meat.

Do they have a case? IANAL but it strikes me that “spam” has a totally different meaning in the context in which Spam Arrest uses it and there seems to be very little chance that it will be confused with a canned ham product. The use of the term to describe junk e-mail can apparently be traced back to the Monty Python sketch which was definitely referring to the Hormell product, so it could be argued that there is a connection. But does that add up to a trademark violation?

[Extra subject line deleted. – MEB]

[Soup_du_jour]

I heard this case on NPR a few days ago, and I seem to remember the case as different from what your cite suggests. IIRC, on the radio show, Hormel wanted to prevent the brand image/logo or the all-caps, trademarked “SPAM” from illicit use.

From the official Hormel site discussing such issues…

You’ve probably seen, heard or even used the term “spamming” to refer to the act of sending unsolicited commercial email (UCE), or “spam” to refer to the UCE itself. Following is our position on the relationship between UCE and our trademark SPAM.

Use of the term “spam” was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of "spam, spam, spam . . . " in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet.

We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term. Also, if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lower-case letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters.

This slang term does not affect the strength of our trademark SPAM. In a Federal District Court case involving the famous trademark STAR WARS owned by LucasFilms, the Court ruled that the slang term used to refer to the Strategic Defense Initiative did not weaken the trademark and the Court refused to stop its use as a slang term. Other examples of famous trademarks having a different slang meaning include MICKEY MOUSE, to describe something as unsophisticated; TEFLON, used to describe President Reagan; and CADILLAC, used to denote something as being high quality.

[John_Mace]

IANAL, but slang use is one thing, using it explicitly in a product name is another. Wouldn’t it be incredibly ironic if a company like Hormel, making such a lowbrow prodcut ends up collecting beaucoup royalties from dot-com companies? I love it!!