Slashdot Mirror
Hormel Back on The Spam Offensive
Anonymous Howard writes "After an xapparent setback in litigation, Hormel
Foods is again pursuing actions against entities and organizations over the 'spam'
trademark. According to the web site of DSPAM, an open-source
statistical anti-spam filter, "Anti-spam software manufacturers may be in for a
rude awakening. Hormel Foods Corporation and Hormel Foods LLC have recently
filed for extensions to oppose or to cancel many new and existing spam-related
trademarks and are even filing a few technology trademarks of their own. The
DSPAM project, a popular open source and freely available spam filtering
application, has already received two such notices of opposition from the
trademark trial and appeal board. The complete history can be viewed
here. This came about a year after the software's user community scrounged
up the fee to file for a trademark...""
Anyone out there actually eat spam on a regular basis?
The third word in that person's writeup begins with a floating letter 'x'. Get rid of it. Also, in my Tor story, change the eff.tor.org link to tor.eff.org. Jeez, do your job.
It's time to hire a Spam Assassissin to take out a few Hormel lawyers.
I understand why Hormel wants to do this. Normally you don't want your product associated with such a negative thing.
But Spam? Of the people that actually enjoy eating it, would anything dissuade them from doing so? I mean, they're eating gelatinous pig parts. They don't seem like very discerning consumers to me.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Spam Meat gives back 701.000 results, whereas
Spam Mail gives back 52 million 200.000 results.
I think it is clear who loses this case - it's a numbers game...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I am curious why this article wasn't filed as "Your Rights Online". Maybe I am missing the boat here, but this seems to be an IP-related discussion and not a technical issue.
The Crimson Dragon
I seem to recall Hormel being somewhat okay with the use of the word "spam" sans caps. IIRC, "SPAM" is a trademark but "spam" is not.
'DSPAM', as a company name, would seem to be a perfect example of what Hormel has *not* tolerated...
Sinepaw.org: Grape Winos
Aren't trademarks only there to protect a certain brand from being used by others in similar types of industry? Fighting off unwanted commercial e-mail and selling pig's intestines as food are way different playing fields, so I don't see how Hormel has a case...
Of course, IANAL, so correct me if I'm wrong...
from: http://spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm
Also, from their Legal and Copyright page:
sig?
SPAM is tasty, not the most healthy thing you can eat, but bacon isn't very low fat either.
The low fat spam is the best tasting, the Turkey spam is an interesting variation on a theme.
The Hormel company should protect the name of their product.
If it was called getting 'McDonalded' junk e-mail,
you betcha McDonald's company would be sueing everybody in sight for misusing their product name...
This is worse than a case of trying to close the barn door after the horse has run out.
This is trying to close the barn door after the horse has run out, gone to the airport, and flown to Australia to play dijeridu in a punk band.
No way is Hormel ever going to successfully use litigation to stop the popular use of the name of its product to describe UCE. As long as the print media keeps putting quotes around it, all the lawyers in the world won't stop it.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
"According to the web site of DSPAM, an open-source statistical anti-spam filter"
"The DSPAM project, a popular open source and freely available spam filtering application"
What's DSPAM for again?
Good question, but a disgusting one. Anyone ever eat Hormel Foods Spam at all? My understanding is that Spam is just a way of selling the fat and scraps that are left after processing other kinds of meat products. That's how spam email got its name; spam email is the least desirable kind of email; Spam meat is the least desirable kind of meat. Whoever named unwanted email "spam" was a communication genius; he gained instant comprehension.
Hormel Foods might want to think again about involving hundreds of thousands of logically minded people in thinking about their trademark and products. Any company that sells a product like Spam should want to avoid being featured on Slashdot.
Anyhow, it is too late. The word spam is far more associated now with unwanted email than it is with a meat byproduct. Hormel should have protested more strongly 10 years ago.
If Hormel wants to exclusivily "own" all the spam, I would be very happy to send them all mine!
... they're not suing Monty Python
I can see their point. They've spent 68 years promoting their product and it's trademark and now some young whippersnappers have come along and linked it to something one wishes to avoid. I'd be pissed too.
They are also being quite reasonable in requesting that their trademark not be incorporated into other trademarks for association with something one wishes to avoid. It's not the same as Tiger which falls into the category of 'wordmarks'. SPAM was never a word so their argument is much stronger. DSPAM using SPAM is akin to taking someones custom artwork and adding a 'D' in front of it and calling it a different trademark.
Hmmm.... That'll never fly. Spammers would be forced to pay Hormel royalties for sending out mail. The government doesn't like competition!
Perhaps they would find it distasteful to say "No--it doesn't taste like human, it tastes like the delicious pig lips and anus that it has always been."
(trolling on the floor, laughing)
Hormel have a trademark on spam, a meat byproduct. Hormel do not have a trademark on spam as unsolicited commercial email.
If they can't protect their trademark, they lose it. All you have to do is point me towards where the anti-spam vendors are using the word in conjunction with the food industry and I'm right with you.
Not that simple.
Bulk email was called spam by geeks.
Geeks are fans of Monty Python.
Python referenced spam in a lot of skits.
Hormel are getting a lot of free awareness of their product.
This lawsuit further raises the visibility of spam.
Go, convergence of legal system and advertising!
How about some suggesting alternative names?
'Potted electronic mail product', for example.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
First Spam is made from beef, not pork.
Quoted from the can... "Ingredients: Pork with Ham, Salt, Sugar, Sodium Nitrite." See picture.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
It's a clear trademark infringement. Don't make this out to be more than it is.
As if they could stop its use as a slang term, or as if that's even a legal action for a company or court to undertake. Trademarks are about advertising, or reference to a product. No one can stop you from merely reusing the words of a trademark.
Companies that get bent out of shape when their product becomes a metaphor need to adjust their attitude. A product such as Hormel's SPAM luncheon meat, with its, er, distinctive physical characteristics, is ripe for similization.
But of course, Hormel doesn't want to lose their trademark to common use. Then, someone could start making generic spam meat. Oh, the horror!
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Funny observation from a link in a comment below:
"Does Spam taste corpsy? Of course it tastes corpsy -- it's meat. We're just arguing about the identity of the deceased."
Also: "... the name Spam is derived from the words "spicy ham,
It seems to me that islanders liked Hormel SPAM because it was the cheapest form of meat product and because they accepted high fat food because they ate coconut.
Everyone already equates junk email to "spam" their efforts will be futile. This will have as much success as MS trying to rebrand searching from "googling" something to "msning" something. it simply won't happen under the direction of the company wishing it so. all the IP lawyers in the world aren't going to change the minds of the entire population of computer users.
they are wasting their money.
Under normal circumstances, marks in different classes are allowed to co-exists even if they are identical. For marks that are not entirely identical but merely very similar, like "Spam" vs. "SpamArrest", even more so.
For really well known marks, like Coca-Cola or IBM, there is an exception to this rule, which is called "Kodak protection" after the landmark case that is considered to have established the principle.
But in this case, where the original "Spam" trademark is so strongly tied to just one very specific product, I'd be very surprised if a court would find the "Spam" should enjoy Kodak protection. It's also quite debatable if "Spam" was ever that famous.
And even if there was a time when it could perhaps be argued that "Spam" was more frequently used to denote the "food" product, nowadays the meaning "junk email" is so widely established that I can't see how the owners of the origial "Spam" trademark could hope to be successful in their claims.
But perhaps they have some reasons for trying to pursue what to me looks like a very weak case indeed.
IANATML, but I've worked in the trademarks business for 25 years developing phonetic trademark search systems.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
If you're one of those poor souls who can't appreciate the pure joy of two slices of spam with cheap yellow mustard on white bread, here's an alternative that you should try:
1 small onion
1 can Spam
2 inches cut from the end of a block of Velveeta
Peel the onion and chop it in a food processor. Add the Velveeta and chop for a short burst. Then add the Spam and chop only long enough to blend the results -- you're don't want to turn it into a paste, you want to leave the Spam somewhat chunky.
Spread the result thickly on a hamburger bun or English muffin, and place Spam-side-up on a tray under the broiler until the cheese melts.
I've always been impressed with the lighthearted (in a legal sense, I'm sure pirvately they're quite pissed about the whole thing) Hormel has been with the use of their product name in such a negative light. I don't think many companies would take such a view. I mean, Microsoft won't even let you market a product whose name SOUNDS like 'Windows.' I think that Hormel's stand in this case is reasonable.
/hates both spam and SPAM.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
He should sue the spammers for giving his product a bad name ;)
Privacy is terrorism.
...historians and/or visiting alien species visiting us in the future after things fall apart for humankind will, when researching the downfall of our species, probably conclude a huge amount of our intellectual, fiscal and human capital/resources were wasted on silly matters such as this and others that seem to make up and take up a lot of people's time in the USA and more so now in the UK. Goddamit, can Hormel just get a life? Sooner individual Americans start to know how to laugh at themselves the better for all of us. It's called self-depreciation.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
They're going to have a hard time suing someone for using SPAM in upper-case since they didn't gripe about the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. I guess suing congress would be a bit difficult.
They're SPAMmers.
Ahh, the infamous Anonymous Coward. Declares "You're stupid" in their subject line, spouts falsehoods as facts and oversimplifies the entire discussion.
Where would Slashdot be without you, Anonymous Coward?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Meanwhile, in China, a small boat building company is preparing to launch an all out legal offensive on any company wishing to use the junk (ie; junk mail) in thier products instead of spam.
I think that in this case, "pretty well established" is probably a correct term, but I also think it is a mistake.
The question is not why unwanted email was originally named "spam". The question is why the term was immediately adopted and enthusiastically used by so many people.
The people who named it "spam" and the people who adopted the term so easily and with such popularity were probably older people, not teenagers or people in their early twenties. I say that because I believe the formula for Hormel Foods SPAM has changed. I tried SPAM in the 50's. Even as a child I was disgusted by the fat in SPAM then. So, when I first heard the word "spam" associated with unwanted email, I completely understood and agreed wtih the reference.
If unwanted email had been named "foot stomp", I might have recognized the reference to the Monty Python TV show, but I would not have adopted the term myself.
I remember trying a bite of Hormel Foods SPAM several years ago, and I was surprised that it was not disgusting. That's why I think that the formula was changed.
Someone, please look on a can of Hormel Foods SPAM and post a comment with the total calories per serving and the number of fat calories per serviing.
Funny official statement from Hormel Foods : Let's face it. Today's teens and young adults are more computer savvy than ever, and the next generations will be even more so. Children will be exposed to the slang term "spam" to describe UCE well before being exposed to our famous product SPAM. Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, "Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk e-mail?"
Hormel have lost this battle. First email is in no way associated with the food product they sell. Then they tacitly gave the ok for people to use the term.
Can't have it both ways.
I've been targeted for a trademark dispute. Funny thing was the MIDI Manufacturers Association didn't own the trademark they said I breached.
Take this posturing with a pinch of salt, they have nothing and it is common practice for companies to try it on.
...will they be sueing congress for CAN-SPAN? And more importantly, why not?
I don't understand why Hormel insists on their unsolicited email campaign to get their word out.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
LOL. Mod parent up!
According to a SPAM facts web page, SPAM is mostly fat:
"Nutrition Information For SPAM (original style):
* Calories Per Serving: 170
* Calories Per Serving From Fat: 140"
Quoted from the can... "Ingredients: Pork with Ham, Salt, Sugar, Sodium Nitrite."
What's the difference between Pork and Ham????
Let's take George Carlin's advice in rebranding spam. Use the company that "likes to spread their logo feces across the country"
Budweiser!
Pork refers to the shoulder in this context. Ham to the hind or rear thigh.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
PEMP? Nah... Go for "Potted Internet Mail Product" and we have a winner ;-))
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Trademarks work the way they do for a reason: because people want protection of their business and product names, but are not allowed to enforce the way the public uses language. A trademark holder gets a monopoly on a term that is not commonly in use for the purpose to which they have applied it. If the term does happen to go into common useage, they lose it. Trademarks should never be used to enforce how we use words.
This is why Bayer was forced to give up its trademarks on the words "aspirin" and "heroin." It's why Kodak ended up trying really hard to prevent their trademark from being used as a generic term for photographs after years of pushing their product that way. It's why Microsoft shouldn't have a trademark on the term "windows" when applied to a window-based GUI, and why Hormel should give up and either rename their product or accept that they have no case.
Of course this main "generic term" point is tangential. A case like this shouldn't even come to proving that spam is a generic term because the technology-related use of the word is in a diffierent industry from Hormel's anyway. If DSPAM were to go into the food business (ha, ha - I called SPAM "food"), then Hormel would have a case against them. But even as a "product" name, DSPAM should be in the clear because the term is applied to a different industry entirely.
Surely both points together mean that if DSPAM's lawyers cost the same as Hormel's, DSPAM would win.
When we call something as bad as spam...spam, it's a term of endearment towards the product!
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
SPAM stands for Specially Processed Assorted Meat, the acronym chosen during the world wars when the original name was not popular enough.
The internet 'SPAM' as in unwanted content came from the Monty Python skit where they repeated 'spamspamspam' ad infinum, and generally annoyed everyone. You see the relevance?
Or even have a website that even sounds like Microsoft. Remember when the Redmond, Washington software giant legally bitchslapped Mike Rowe for his software site which used to be at http://www.mikerowesoft.com/ ? Microsoft now owns it and is 'squatting' on it as that URL 'goes nowhere'.
Assorted related results from Google
Mike tried to 'ride Microsoft's coattails' and lost soundly.
Money talks! Nothing else matters!
(Such is the way of this capitalistic world that humans live in, where business and government 'work together' to decide the fate of billions of people....)
Xapparent? Sounds like a cool new word.
Nice "editing," Timothy.
Advice: on VPS providers
No, that just means that most of the CALORIES are from fat. This is true of most foods that contain any fat (including butter and veg.oils) at all, because fat is the most caloric-dense ingredient.
Fat runs around 170 calories per ounce (vs. something like 60 cal/oz for meat).
So if a 2-ounce serving contains 140 cal. from fat, that means the product is around 20% fat.
Which is about the same as ordinary hamburger.
As to changes over the years, pork itself has become a fairly lean meat, so there is less fat in the average processed pig than there was 30 years ago. But the canning process is rather finicky about what can be in the can and still come out at the desired texture, so it's more likely changes in your tastes with maturity that make it seem different. Lots of kids think many things are gross that these same kids gobble wholeheartedly as adults.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Hmmm. Calories alone is misleading. Correcting for the different energy contents, (I Googled for the numbers):
1 gram fat = 9 calories
1 gram protein = 4 calories
Assume no carbohydrates ie. basically meat and fat.
140 calories from fat= 15.6 grams fat
30 calories from protein= 7.5 grams protein
per serving
That's just over 2/3rd fat... But that's omitting the water content of the meat. Assume a water content of 70% for meat, (figure randomly pulled from a web site), and assuming the manufacturers haven't added extra zero-calories water, that protein content is 30% of the total weight of meat...Meat content being 7.5/3 * 10 = 25 grams.
So in real terms, unless you commonly eat dry protein powder, each serving is actally 15.6 grams of fat, 25 grams of meat..
Sill pretty fatty really, but not "mostly" fat.
AC parent poster is right!
The very existence of the CAN-SPAM act ought to be enough for Hormel to withdraw their complaint against DSPAM and their ilk. Why didn't they say anything when Congress named the anti-UCE bill CAN-SPAM?
Free advertising for Hormel and SPAM via the (worthless) CAN-SPAM Act Of 2003.
Hormel can't have it both ways....
As for me I will continue to 'eat my own dogfood' and enjoy a spam-free email inbox at iamcf13@hotpop.com
i would think that the increase of the insipid internet spam has helped the SPAM "meat" company quite a bit.
i would say that in the 80s SPAM had its heyday but quickly faded into near non-existence. here comes spam and now everyone knows what SPAM is.
come on - it's free publicity. who WOULDN'T want that? maybe they should take it in stride and spin it with a little humor. they'd probably fare better than trying to take people to court.
nature loves variety::society hates it get your variety at http://www.monkeypantz.net
To differentiate between the two maybe we should use a different spelling like SPHAM or SPAGHM or something like that.
...historians and/or alien race(s) visiting us in the future after things fall apart for humankind, will, when researching the downfall of our species, probably conclude a huge amount of our intellectual, fiscal and human resources were wasted on silly matters such as this. And not to mention other 'legal' and corporate interest issues that take up a lot of people's time in the USA and more so now in the UK where the concept of self-deprecation is a fading concept. Goddamit, can Hormel just get a life? Sooner individual Americans start to know how to laugh at themselves the better for all of us. And the same for us Brits too! We all need to put all this energy into solving real problems. How about a solar panel on every home for starters?
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
The one place where you can libel and slander with impunity is the floor of a legislative chamber. I don't know that this extends to trademark violations, but I would suspect it does. I also suspect that a congress-person could read the DeCSS code there and be immune from DCMA, but I don't know for sure. It would be an intersting test case if anyone knows a lame-duck congressman.
France's official Journal (the parlimentary newspaper if you prefer) has just decided that, to save the French language from being crushed by english words, that wifi(whihc doesn't mean much in english either) will now be AISF(Access Internet Sans Fils) and "Spammers" will now be called "Arroseur" (literal translation is a "Sprayer"). In the best of worlds, people who only use the internet for porn and blackmailing other politicians wron't be the ones deciding which way internet culture goes.
"Spam" is short for "SPiced hAM".
The cake is a pie
Don't forget, under U.S. law a company is required to defend its trademarks from use by other parties, or they can lose the trademark. That's usually the reason for trademark lawsuits like this that strike everyone as silly and mean-spirited.
I think someone at hormel spends a lot of time on slashdot!
http://www.hormel.com/kitchen/recipe.asp?id=5775
Change the name, it's quite simple. Hormel has been ignoring people using the term "spam" for quite some time: and you had to go file a trademark?
Cripes. What a complete waste of money. It's not like you need the name-branding. Look at the Thunderbird/etc people. They changed their names how many times and they're still ridiculously popular!
Companies have to defend their trademarks lest they slip into general use. That's what happened to Moxie, Cellophane, Aspirin, etc. Hormel isn't doing this just to be jerks; they have to be shown to be making an active defense or risk losing their rights to "spam." Defense of trademark is also why commercials say things like "Scotch brand" tape. I'll leave the argument as to whether the rights to "spam" are worth fighting for to others.
I don't get it. My SPAM traps are *always* full so how can these protectionists complain that the industry is dying? Who are these guys anyway? GreenHam? The HIAA?
Did you TRY typing it in your browser? No? Oh, ok. You lose.
"That's just over 2/3rd fat."
That's exactly what I said.
I think fat has water content, too, so the other calculations are not correct. Anyhow, what matters is the calories.
is do a little research and find a good open source project that combats "spam" and sponsor it. It would probably go a long ways toward offsetting the negative publicity that "spam" causes.
Their current strategy will probably backfire.
All you have to do is point me towards where the anti-spam vendors are using the word in conjunction with the food industry and I'm right with you.
They're not protecting the mark against use in the computer industry. They're protecting the mark against becoming genericized. Preserving the difference between SPAM as a product, and spam as a class of unwanted advertising is critical to that. Not to mention, that on the web, you definitely have issues with mark dilution when people keep drawing connections between the two (witness the old Slashdot icon for UCE, which was a can of SPAM, for example.)
Slow smoked pork shoulder (over pecan wood w/ a good dry rub) is the food of the gods.
And they use shoulder to make SPAM(tm)?
It's a crying shame.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
There's a Hawaiian restaurant here in the SF bay area that offers SPAM maki: a slice of SPAM on rice wrapped with seaweed. I just had to try it, and you know what? It was surprisingly good. The flavor of the seaweed really complemented the flavor of the SPAM. (Wasabi and ginger didn't hurt either.) I'm starting to think the Hawaiians may be on to something here! :)
Hormel's Spam floods peoples e-mail with penis enlargement pills. Hormel spams. I got a lot of SPAM in my e-mail from Russian mafia telling me good money make stategy. SPAM is not a food product. SPAM is e-mail.
Go ahead bitches, sue me.
I ran the site for maybe a year before I received my first C&D letter from Hormel. I replied back telling them I was not attempting to compete and was not dilluting their mark. Basically a nice, "Go to hell, Hormel!"
There were one or two more letters back and forth between Hormel and myself. When I registered the domain you still didn't have to pay for a registration. When Hormel decided they wanted it back you had to pay $100 for two years to InterNIC. I wanted Hormel to at least buy me a new domain since they were starting to threaten litigation if I didn't hand over spam.net (I was 20 at the time, litigation by a LARGE corporation didn't sound like a walk in the park).
Some months later I received a letter from WIPO telling me that Hormel had filed a petition against me and they decided the case was vague enough that they wouldn't give Hormel the name, but I couldn't use it either. InterNIC put the domain name on hold until Hormel and I could sort it out amongst ourselves.
Hormel contacted me once against asking for the name and I told them if I couldn't have it, they couldn't either. I was happy to leave it on hold so NEITHER of us could use it (scorched earth mentality baby!).
They just went away.
I would check on the name from time to time to see if it was still on hold. About 2 months before the payment was due (InterNIC required payment for on hold domains, damn their then-monopoly) I checked on the domain name. I was registered to Hormel, lock stock and barrel!
My plan had been to pay the registration feel just to keep the name tied up, but somehow - and without anyone notifying me - they managed to get the name transfered to them and taken off hold.
At no point had I ever agreed to transfer the name or provided anything in writing that said anything remotely close to it. But there it was, big as day, off hold and in the hands of Hormel.
I've been a little bitter about it ever since.
People have been using the word spam for junk email longer than I've been in the industry and that's a looong time for any company to sit back and not enforce it's trademark.
OK, it's not "spam". From now on I shall refer to junk email as "hormel".
I suggest you read Slashdot
Pigs are smarter than dogs. I wonder what they think about all this?
By the way, would you eat a dog?
Byotch betta hab mah money. Not some, not half, but all my cash...
So...do they expect the spammish inquisition?
Warning: Could be fatal if taken seriously
> Sodium Nitrite
Does that mean it could be used to make explosives?
Probably doesn't have enough of it, though.
Hmmm...
...specific to whatever industry you're using it in?
Meaning, all the companies making anti-spam products are NOT in the food industry. They're in the tech industry.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
...or is Monty Python in trouble, too?
Hormel has been trying to get people to use "UCE" Unsolicited Commercial Email for what is normaly called email-spam these days. Hormel has been pretty polite about the whole thing, maybe they'll pay for a new trademark.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Did you TRY typing it in your browser? No? Oh, ok. You lose.
No, I tried surfing to the site a few times before I made my original post on this matter and got 'page not found' from Internet Explorer. This was (in retrospect) undoubltedly due to the webserver being 'flat on its back' at the time of access and not responding at all -- thus, the 'page not found' error.
I didn't lose.
Rather, I 'jumped to conclusions'.
Yeah, and I came across as a dickhead.
Sorry, that's the effect of Posting Before Ready, in this case, insufficient coffee and nicotine at the time.
My apologies.
Shouldn't they be sueing Monty Python and his gang? Just a thought..
This sig rocks the casbah.
The extensions of time to file opposition are routine practices that can be achieved just by asking for them. They mean nothing at all.
It remains to be seen whether SPAM is sufficiently famous for purposes of dilution, and in view of the well-ingrained use for UCE, it can't be. When I hear "Spam" today, I very rarely think about the food product.
In any case, there is no risk of likelihood of confusion arising from DSPAM's commercial use -- nobody would assume affiliation. Moreover, there is danger in permitting Hormel to reappropriate a now-commonly used now-English word that they lost due to their negligence over year after year of inaction.
Xerox was at risk of genericide, and acted -- agressively. For Hormel, if there was ever a time to do it, it is probably too late. Time will tell.
Understood.
I guess all 'professional' websites are hosted by pros on the best equipment possible that is backed by UPSes so 'they never go down' except for routine maintennance or something catastrophic and unforseen like -- unfortunately -- 2001-09-11. Hence, it seems, the overall perception of the Internet when a 'page not found' error occurs is one of the following:
1) The site is down temporarily
2) The site is gone for good
3) The site is brand new and its DNS name hasn't fully propagated through 'all' the DNS servers on the internet yet. Using the actual IP address of the site in question should get you to it.
It seems there is a variation on 'page not found' where the domain exists but redirects you somewhere else. I tried it with the (in)famous URL http://www.cyberpromo.com/ and was sent to a 'buymenow' page for it at another domain.
I hope you found this information helpful.
Bayer lost the rights to its name and trademarks in many countries as a result of World War I.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Go kill yourself and do us all a favor.
It's not a fucking acronym. Please do some research. "Pork is not a meat." God, are you that dense that when you spout nonsense you can't even see it?
There are some companies that make hot dogs that are actually of high quality, and not just an attempt to get rid of meat scraps by grinding them.
But no, I usually don't eat hot dogs.
people that eat spam like spam already get the whole joke. its like eating mcdonalds, u like it, u get its not that good for you, u don't care. its like the mystery meat of hotdog. not stopping the sales.
"goes in your lunchbox, not in your inbox"
those who get food from red cross often get lots of spam
http://spam.net/ci/ci_in.htm
Clueful folk in the industry recognize that Hormel is 'being nice'. I agree.
2. Some thoughts on SpamArrest:
http://tardigrade.net/challengeresponse.html
http://bre.klaki.net/dagbok/faerslur/1096220563.s
http://www.nelson.monkey.org/~nelson/weblog/tech/
These pretty much agree with my take on the issue.
I don't have much sympathy for SpamArrest. They are clueless as far as fighting spam properly, apparently so far as to not even be aware of Hormel's position noted above.
This is a no-win situation for Hormel. They are a laughing stock if the try to protect their trademark against the e-mail spam companies. But, if they don't act, one of their competitors in the meat packing business could market a product with a "generic" name of spam. If and when that event happens, Hormel can point to the instances when they acted to protect the name. So the actions they take now, while the may seem silly to slashdotters, will provide them will legal ammo down the road.
I'm not a lawyer, but I did stay in Holiday Inn Express last night...
Don't forget, under U.S. law a company is required to defend its trademarks from use by other parties, or they can lose the trademark. That's usually the reason for trademark lawsuits like this that strike everyone as silly and mean-spirited.
We need an "incomplete" moderation tag.
Yes, an entity holding trademark is required to defend it or lose it. HOWEVER, a trademark is not under attack when not used in the same classification of product. There can be an zSeries computer hardware product as well as a zSeries haircut, a zSeries Sci-Fi book, and so on; each with their own trademark, and each not diluting each other.
What makes this (potential) lawsuit silly and mean-spirited is that Hormel is in the FOOD business and SPAM made by Hormel is considered a food product. DSPAM for example, is NOT a food product (or even a laxative which IMO would be funny as hell - "Eat SPAM lately and want it out right now? Take DSPAM Laxative!"), it is a computer software product.
As such *legally* speaking, Hormel is NOT required to "defend" it's trademark against DSPAM the software product. Therefore, this case is not one of Hormel being required to do anything to "defend" it's trademark.
Therefore this (potential) lawsuit is silly, mean-spirited, w/o merit, and pathetically sad, really.
Had you read the article, you would have known this. Actually, if you knew anything substantive about Trademark law, you would have known this w/o reading the article.
Had you read the article, you would have known that a lawsuit has yet to be filed. You would have known that Hormel has recently filed an attempt to trademark SPAM as "downloadable software, namely screensavers".
Why do this? They KNOW they can't fight the battle being "only" a food maker. They KNOW that DSPAM and SPAM are in two entirely different classes of products. They KNOW they'd lose, and lose big.
So what do they do? They suddenly decide to go into the computer software business. They did this AFTER the term spam for UCE was pervasive, as well as AFTER DSPAM submitted their trademark filing.
There is but one reason for Hormel to do this. They want to be able to claim SPAM as a computer related trademark. It's a stupid notion that they have a screensaver they want to call SPAM given the negative connotation "spam" has in the computer world. They would start out in a horrible marketing position. One would have to presume their marketing department would know this, as would anyone reasonably modern or intelligent at Hormel.
Thus, the only safe conclusion is the one I posited: that they are trying to establish an alleged computer software product to attach their SPAM trademark to in order to provide some assumed basis for countering the use of it elsewhere. This too, is futile, however.
The presence of many anti-spam/spam references, their own admission of it's usage in the computer world, as well as the use of it by the U.S. Congress all point to a non-starter. Like prior art.
Further, to move their trademark into entirely unrelated areas can serve as a dilution on it's own. Only when the extension of trademark adds significant value to the new venture is it benefical and not dilutive. An example is the expansion of "Virgin Airways" to Virgin Galactic and so on. SPAM has never had a strong brand association, even prior to the Internet. As such, an extension of it would be unwise. It is a dubious assertion that Hormel is unaware of this. Again, this leads to the aforementioned assumption of intent.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
For diluting their trademark with the CAN SPAM act...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Using the term "spam" for UCE has passed into the venacular a long, long time ago. The only way Hormel can get it back, now, is to get rid of e-mail spam. They probably have grounds for a really huge trade dress lawsuit against the large spammers!
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Why would I eat SPAM when I can get TREET for 1/2 the price?
Cheap storage VM.
when MS was criticized for the trademark filing, they took great pains to explain that the trademark was for "microsoft windows," not "windows."
A necessity, both because "windows" is a single common word, and because it was already in widewspread use to describe a section of the screen on a computer.
hawk
You're right, it does seem they're just defending the trademark as required by law to keep it. However, I'm really surprised they've not used humor to leverage the popularity of the term to sell their product. Jack-in-the-box would've jumped on this years ago. It seems Hormel are suffering from a lack of imagination.
First Spam is made from beef, not pork.
This must surely be one of those times when you're thankful you posted as an Anonymous Retard!
S*am
S-pam
Annoying flood of email formerly known as a poor tasting potted meat product?
---- Booth was a patriot ----