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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...""
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.
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.
You are correct, however, things get a bit more complicated when a company takes the trouble to invent a unique word to be their mark.
Exxon, Lexus, Infiniti, etc.
Coining a new word makes the mark stronger, because it begins its life innately attached to the company/product; and nothing else, as opposed to, say, "Bob's Garage."
Standard Oil even went to considerable trouble and expense to make sure their Exxon mark didn't have negative conotations anywhere in the world.
If you look down you'll find that Hormel is actually being rather reasonable about the whole thing, given the situation. They're defending their mark, as they must if they don't wish to loose it, but they really just aren't being dickheads about it. They accept that their mark, a word they invented just to be associated with their product, now has a new and second meaning.
But their concerns that in future people might wonder why they named their potted meat product after junk email are perfectly valid.
KFG
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
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.
Can't it? I thought that if a trademark became associated with a generic thing it could lose its trademark status. As such, if you can show that people associate spam more readily to the junk e-mail than the meat product, it may just lose its trademark status. Granted, I don't know much on those things and I was only basing my comment on the fact that "Xerox" and "Google" were concerned because people "xerox" documents and "google" terms on the web on a daily basis... Hopefully better informed people will be able to light my bulb.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
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?
English comedy is only considered bland by those who don't understand it.
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.
:)
Do you eat hot dogs? What's your understanding of those?