Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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)
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
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
That's why the amount they are seeking is $0.98
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
It's also the butt of a lot of other things.
I hear it's treated with reverence in Hawaii for some reason...
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
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.
I hear it's treated with reverence in Hawaii for some reason...
That's because for a while it was about the only meat you could get imported into hawaii. Or something like that. My parents lead a field trip there this past spring and when they got back they explained the hawaii spam connection. Anybody want to expand on my half-remembered explanation?
-sam
I was just here, where did I go?
I've flipped through a few magazines marketed towards aspiring fiction writers, and these publications are littered with advertisements by companies demanding that writers reference their products correctly in any works produced. I specifically remember an ad by Hormel requesting that writers refer to Spam as "Hormel Foods Brand SPAM Luncheon Meat" anytime one would want to refer to it in some sort of work of literature.
Also, from the Spam.com Legal and Copyright Info page, I found this hilarious little bit: So if I make up the word "SpamWhore", well, it's owned by Hormel Foods, and should have been spelled SPAMWHORE. Even though they've never registered it. Too funny.
When does fair use ever come to the mind of a corporation?
+ G to tha Izzo, A to tha Tizee, Talking Giz-oat, Ya'll Bettah Feel Me... +
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):
Spam is indeed quite popular not only in Hawaii, but throughout the Pacific islands.
Importing food to Hawaii, Micronesia, etc. is expensive and difficult. Fresh foods, like dairy products and breads, come by boat (too bulky to ship by air, for the most part), but that means a delay of several days to several weeks before they wind up on store shelves. Lots of things go bad in that amount of time, even on refrigerated ships.
Spam, and to a lesser extent, canned meats like corned beef from Australia, fill the need for meat nicely. They stay fresh indefinitely and travel easily without the need for refrigeration. As a result, they're much cheaper than "fresh" meat and much more popular.
(Travel writer Paul Theroux joked in "The Happy Isles of Oceania" that islanders liked Spam because it reminded them of their history of cannibalism. Of course, very few islands ever had a history of cannibalism in the first place, and Theroux admits that he threw the idea out there as a cheap joke, not an anthropological theory.)
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.
Had to do with rationing during WW2:
http://www.modernsurf.com/spam/
In the beginning Hormel had sold only twenty thousand tons of Spam when World War 2 started; it was during the war that SPAM, like S.O.S. (dried chipped beef on toast, known to soldiers as ?Shit on a Shingle?), became notorious. SPAM was a lendlease staple, sent in such abundance to Allied troops that Nikita Khrushchev later credited it with the survival of the otherwise starving Russian army, a can of SPAM is like heaven after eating a shoe sole. In England, where beef was severely rationed, SPAM was the only meat like matter many families ate for weeks on end.
Hawaii, staging ground for the war in the Pacific, fell so in love with SPAM that to this day, Hawaiians eat an average of six cans per person per year, far more than in any other place on earth. I know a few Hawaiians who eat two cans a week. Because it was unaffected by meat rationing, SPAM was eaten on the American home front in record quantity, too.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
The trick is that you don't just suck on a brick of it. Stir-fry with veggies and teriyaki sauce or a zillion other recipes. And if you still don't like SPAM, a can in the cupboard can keep you going for ages just like Dwarf bread. (Discworld joke.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
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.
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
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....
"Nikita Khrushchev later credited it with the survival of the otherwise starving Russian army"
Holy crap.
If the Russian troops don't have Spam and starve, the Nazis take Moscow and Russia falls. If Russia falls then the Nazis focus on Britain and it falls. Without Spam, Hilter might have conquered the whole world. I have a new respect for it.
"Because it was unaffected by meat rationing..."
Maybe that should tell people something about its contents.
-B