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Hormel Sues Over SpamArrest Name
slammin'j writes "According to this article from the Star Tribune, Hormel has filed a lawsuit against Spam Arrest LLC. for endangering "substantial goodwill and good reputation" of their meat product, Spam. If Hormel wins, it could be bad news for umpteen companies that make use of the word
spam in their name."
Spam? Good reputation? Ha! That stuff has been the butt of jokes as longs as I can remember! Who are they kidding?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
that someone came up with some software to keep that pink canned monstrosity of a luncheon meat out of my cupboard... oh wait, they are talking about email? nevermind
endangering "substantial goodwill and good reputation" of their meat product
Don't they already endanger the goodwill and "good" reputation by calling it a "meat product"?
Mike
so are we going to change our name for junk email now?
lets call it McRibs...
IANAL but...
Hasn't the term "spam" been rendered generic by now? I don't think Hormel has done anything in the past to protect the trademark against this use. Besides, the last time I read their website it indicated that only the form "SPAM" was trademarked and copyrighted by them.
Hmmm....
IANAL disclaimer - The judge will probably rule there is no confusion between the two. Spam has taken on an entirely different generic meaning w.r.t email, that is unlikely to be confused with the popular luncheon meat. Hormel should have enforced their trademark much earler to stop the alternative usage of the word "Spam". This is almost certainly too little, too late.
My rights don't need management.
Isn't one supposed to check for this kind of stuff prior to creation? I just started my own business and spent significant time on the patent/trademark website.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
They have traditionally been pretty good about letting people use the term Spam.
I have to agree with them on this. Anything like a company named "Spam Arrest" or "Fuck Spam, Inc." or something like that could be considered slander. I mean, if you ignore the e-mail side of things, it sounds like a company set up to make money by telling people how bad Spam ham is.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
What happened to:
"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."
-- derby
They could get around it the same way that I used to avoid reserved words in programming - use all swears.
Instead of "Spam Arrest" they could just change their names to "Fuck Shitters" or "Explosive Ass Mansion" (I am fully aware that the second example only had one swear in it, and two non-swear words - but I thought it sounded like a good company name - or a new ride at Disney).
Another option would be to just flail on the keyboard and then do a quick search to see if that is anywhere on the net - if not - bingo!
For instance, they could go with the name ";oasdguos " which might not be as easy to remember, but I think over time it could grow on you like a cancerous tumor (which could also be their new ad campaign).
If all else fails, we can just resort to all numbers.
Their new name, from this day forward would be "Comapny 16843329" - not to be confused with 16843328 or 16843330 which make coat hangers and tampons respectively.
I should probably not say anymore since as it is, I've said too much and feel that perhaps a consulting fee is in order.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
>On its Web site, Hormel states that it does not object to use of
>the word spam as a "slang term," as long as pictures of the product
>are not used with such references.
This is true. There used to be an entry in the FAQ on Hormel's website saying that they were cool with people using the term "spam" to refer to Unsolicted Commercial E-mail (UCE). They only asked that folks did not use "SPAM" in all uppercase.
From reading the article, I gather that Hormel is concerned that another commercial entity with the word "spam" in its trademark could cause confusion with the luncheon meat. (at least among computer-illiterate people)
Whether those concerns are enough to stop Spam Arrest from using the word 'spam' is something that will probably be determined after a legal battle.
For the love of SPAM
Oh my...
The unofficial
No, Hormel is not suing Spamarrest over their name.
/. editors did not read the article, just the submission, which was TOTALLY WRONG!
Hormel is opposing Spamarrest's attempt to TRADEMARK "Spamarrest".
It is clearly stated in the article. The
Hormel has been pretty damn cool about the whole "spam as email/SPAM as meat" thing - go look at their web page about it.
www.eFax.com are spammers
RTA. They are opposing an attempt to trademark a name containing their registered trademark. Considering the typically litigious nature of other companies and Hormel's relative tolerance of the use of the generic term "spam", I hardly think they should be cast as the bad guy for opposing someone else trademarking a name containing theirs.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
as i understand, it was short for "spiced ham". but your suggestion seems far more accurate :-)
Spokesdemons for the Devil scoffed at the allegations, saying "Good luck finding an attorney who isn't already on the Dark Lord's retainer."
The term "SPAM", when used to refer to "unsolicited commercial electronic mail", is so commonly used that it is even used in the names of laws, such as the "Anti-Spam Act of 2003".
http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108hr2515.html
Will Hormel also sue the U.S. Congress?
While I'm all for companies defending their trademarks, I think Hormel has waited just a LITTLE bit too long on this one.
assert(birth_date<time-86400)
Hasn't SPAM been put into the Dictionary?
Yes, it has been added
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
The Hormel group has really been good natured about the whole thing going back to the Monty Python skit and going forward from there. They provide the following page explaining their position:
:-D )
http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm
I think they might be objecting to combining Spam and Arrest. (Considering what their (Hormel's) product does to the cholestorally challenged they may have cause for complaint.
Trademark protection and dilution are certainly a strange area of the law to deal in.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Heck, should have RTFA. It looks like they are only suing because Spam Arrest tried to Trademark Spam. in that case I think they are in their rights because otherwise the UCE company could try to stop them selling their meat-like substance as Spam.
1937: Hormel rolls out its first can of a luncheon meat it calls Spiced Ham. Kenneth Daigneau. An actor and friend of the Hormel family, wins $100 in a contest to name the pink product. The winner combined the "sp" with the "am" and got Spam.
Hormel has been sending out Cease and Desist letters pretaining to Spam at least as far back as 1997, and probably earlier. While Spam has long had negative connotations for some, it is also quite popular with others. Spam is very popular in Hawaii. The term has been appropriated by the public for use in an entierly different context, making this much different from trademark fights by Xerox, Kleenex, and Rollerblades to name a few. And, as the article states, "trademark lawyers were skeptical that Hormel could prevail."
bance.net
Unless Hormel starts marketing either email filters or bulk email software, I don't see how it's an issue. Trademarks only cover things withing a specific trade.
The Austin, Minn., food company, which introduced Spam in 1937, challenged Spam Arrest's applications to trademark its company name.
They aren't suing because they use the word "Spam" in their company name, it is the fact they are trying to get a trademark of their company name (Spam Arrest), which Hormel is trying to stop. The use of the word "spam" to refer to junk email has already been addressed by them. This time, it is in regards to somebody using their trademark in a manner they have not approved of.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
We actually had a "SPAM Acronym" contest one day. The winner, hands down, was:
Some
Po'
Ass
Muthafucka'
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
When you consider that SPAM has been manufactured since World War II--probably one of the few items from that era that you can find in a 24-hr convenience store (barring, say, pocket combs, nail clippers, and chewing gum)--it's *almost* understandable that Hormel would just now be waking up to the fact that their product is being maligned. Someone should tell them that we won the war, also.
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
Regardless, trademarks must be "vigorously defended" or they slip into the public domain. This may just be an attempt on the part of Hormel to ensure that SPAM does not slip into the public domain.
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
Start calling unsolicited commercial email Firebird.
according to the wikipedia:
SPAM is a canned meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation company that has entered into folklore. SPAM luncheon meat is also used as an artistic medium in SPAM carving contests.
The labeled ingredients on the original SPAM are chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, sugar and sodium nitrite.
A Hormel official once stated that the original source of the name SPAM was "Shoulder of Pork And haM".
I seem to recall that the story was that the shoulder meat was being discarded/wasted and that the owner wanted to do something with it. He had the idea for 'canned luncheon meat' and the army picked it up and the rest is history.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Timothy is looking for investors for his new "SPAM spam" company, which will use bulk e-mail in order to sell canned ham products. He believes that this lawsuit might have an impact on the confidence of his investors.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Ok dude, you expect me to believe that there is some magical animal that contains both pork and ham?
I suppose next you'll be telling me that pork is bacon too?
The film Muppet Treasure Island includes a character named "spaam" the leader of the Pig Pirates. Hormel got an injusnction against the use of their name but then lost it Ultimately the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the U.S. concluded:
See here here and good o'l google for more info.
Lest we forget Hormel does sell Spam brand Boxer Shorts in the Adult Apparel section of their spamgifts catologue.
Ok, enough! SPAM is not just "meat like." It's meat! Not the best parts I'll admit, but calling it a non-meat is just wrong.
Ingredients of SPAM (from the SPAM FAQ):
Reminds me of the "Sagan" chip that was in a prototype Amiga. Engineers had meant it as homage to the great Carl Sagan. Well, ol' Carl demanded payment for his name. They renamed it instead, to BHA. When Sagan found out it stood for "Butt-headed Astronomer", he sued them saying that BHA was "defamatory". He lost the case.
Maybe we could re-coin "spam" something like "litigious sh*tloaf".
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
All ham is pork (ignoring turkey "ham" for the moment, since that's just a chunk of turkey flavored like smoked/cured ham), but not all pork is ham. A ham is a hind leg of a pig (or is cut from it). It's usually cured and smoked, but fresh ham isn't. Other cuts have other names (ribs, bacon, etc.).
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I think the last thing I want to do after receiving spam about a farm girl fucking a horse with a 31 inch cock is to go and eat an unknown meat product.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If people had read the article on their website regarding use of their tradmark name SPAM, they would also realise how reasonable the company has been [or had to be :) .]
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Lets all show up in the courthouse dressed as vikings. Whenever one of the attourneys says the word "spam" we can all burst into song! "Spamspamspamspam spamspamspamspam..."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is totally wrong. The term "Spam" originated in the BBS days when lamers would post stuff that was OT or otherwise useless. The resulting traffic was "unfit for human consumption." Some people started referring to this as "Spam" which rapidly evolved into a verb (e.g. "Spamming") When mailing lists started to take over idiots would still post (or even cross-post) useless stuff which was referred to as "Spamming the list." This crap would accumulate in your inbox. Email advertisments had similar properties, not to mention that ad spammers started using mailing lists as a cheap and easy way to get a wide distribution. Thus the term "Spam" began to refer exclusively to unsolicited advertisments.
There was a good story on NPR's Morning Edition this morning about this ... The NPR story has a bit more 'meat' if you'll pardon the pun.
Maybe I should trademark the letter 'E'.
rk.. havn't you hard? Thr's alrady a tradmark on that lttr. B carful man.. you don't wanna gt sud for copyright infringmnt..
slashdot!=valid HTML
People keep saying that Hormel hasn't been defending their trademark, but it seems to me that they have established a clear policy on their site about how the feel about their trademark, and they've stuck consistently to it. In short, if you use "spam" generically, they don't care. If you use it in a way that associates it with their product (i.e. images of the product, or SPAM in all caps as they always do it), they'll come after you.
In this case, somebody wants to trademark the name, and they are fighting that. It seems reasonable that two trademarks containing the word "spam" could be more of a threat than widespread, non-trademarked generic usage. Their position seems reasonable and consistent. Maybe wrong, maybe right, but reasonable.
And I think that they should be given a lot of credit for this. It they were really sending out C&D letters consistently for years and years, they'd be one more of the many companies regularly mocked and griped about on /., but they haven't been. They've only taken legal action in rare cases that are more likely to affect them directly. They're using common sense, and keeping their lawyers in check, but not signing away their rights. Let's give them some credit.
isnt-that-horse department?
Wifey and I to hawaii for our honeymoon. The McDonalds there had a breakfast spam meal. We were curious, but decided against it.
Spam has some very beneficial uses, in fact I have the montey python mp3 linked on my desktop incase a telemarketer calls. When they ask for the man of the house I ask them to hold and place the phone by my speaker. I've only done it twice but the last time I would pick the phone up and ask "Did he pick up yet? no, gosh i'll find him for you" and set it down, almost had him listen to the whole thing, dont know how long the first person stayed. I should record the conversation on the answering machine. Another great tactic if you dont have the clip handy is just start screaming into the air SPAM! while they are making their pitch, dont yell into their ears its more fun to listen to them crack up during their speech.
And by the way, good job honeywell! you'll rights to the spam trademark when this is over.
Okay, first, there's no "judge". The article (obliquely) refers to the fact that Hormel is trying to cancel Spam Arrest's trademark applications. See, for instance, this record at the USPTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. These are administrative hearings with a panel and are not binding on any federal court. They are merely binding on the USPTO's own registration process.
Second, people are misunderstanding genericism. The key is whether the term at issue is generic for the goods or services for which the term is registered. Thus, you can't register PENCIL for pencils, but you sure can for vacuum cleaners. Whether the term is generic for other goods and services is not strictly relevant- one of the strongest trademarks in the world for beverages happens to be generic for the residue of coal left after destructive distillation. You all hear stories about THERMOS becoming generic for thermally-insulated bottles though failure to educate the public that THERMOS was a brand of thermally-insulated bottles, but now you're talking about the equivalent of astronomer's frequent references to exploding stars rendering a car brand generic- it just doesn't work that way.
Hormel should have enforced their trademark much earler to stop the alternative usage of the word
This line of thought is also way off for the same kind of reasons. When exactly did Hormel begin allowing use of the term SPAM by others to distinguish the source of goods or services? When did they begin ignore use of the term SPAM for *any item purchasable by a consumer*? They didn't.
So, nonetheless, I assume someone will persist in believing SPAM has somehow lost trademark significance through reference to unwanted email. Even if this were the case, it's yet another argument in favor of cancelling Spam Arrest's trademark registrations- Spam Arrest certainly use a generic term in their name if either of the parties do.
I can't believe Hormel will have any trouble convincing the TTAB that their mark is famous and entitled to a wide berth on the trademark register. Too well known, too well enforced, too long a period of time in use....