EU Rejects Spam Maker's Trademark Bid

kog777 writes "The producer of the canned pork product Spam has lost a bid to claim the word as a trademark for unsolicited e-mails. EU trademark officials rejected Hormel Foods Corp.'s appeal, dealing the company another setback in its struggle to prevent software companies from using the word 'spam' in their products, a practice it argued was diluting its brand name. The European Office of Trade Marks and Designs, noting that the vast majority of the hits yielded by a Google search for the word made no reference to the food, said that 'the most evident meaning of the term SPAM for the consumers ... will certainly be unsolicited, usually commercial e-mail, rather than a designation for canned spicy ham.'"

Comments

Poor Hormel. It's all the fault of those...

[just_another_sean]

...damn vikings.

Re:Well....

[Sqwubbsy]

Presidential elections?

Trademark defense

[marmoset]

The next time someone bitches about Apple protecting their iPod trademark, I'm just going to forward them a link to this article.

ordering instructions, please

[revery]

the most evident meaning of the term SPAM for the consumers ... will certainly be unsolicited, usually commercial e-mail, rather than a designation for canned spicy ham.

I just want to know how to order breakfast correctly. The last time I asked for Spam spam spam spam spam spam ham eggs spam spam spam bacon and spam, I got 6 advertisements for Viagra and Cialis, 3 pleas for extraditing Nigerian capital, an offer to augment my anatomy and blueberry pancakes served with Raspberry syrup and 2 raw quail eggs.

Please help!!

Sincerely,

A Sad Spam Solicitor

Stupid question of the day

[Rik Sweeney]

"Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, 'Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk e-mail?'"

These would be the same people that will ask why makers of glass-that-fits-into-buildings-to-allow-people-to- see-into-other-areas chose to name their product after Microsoft's Operating System?

Get a grip, Hormel.

Re:Stupid question of the day

[El Torico]

Here's another one, "Mercedes, that's an odd name. Why would anyone name their daughter after a car?"

Re:Stupid question of the day

[hotdiggitydawg]

Hang on let me get this straight, his daughter is "Mercedes" and his friends are "Google" and "Wikipedia"? What an odd bunch of people...

Re:Well....

[jimicus]

they'd rather eat cat feces, which smells the same but tastes slightly better.

How do you know?

Other brands

[Bog Standard]

Well I guess the Coca-Cola Corp now know where they stand should they wish to persue a line in "other" products called coke....

spicy ham???

[michael_allison]

since when did Spam become spicy? i've always been aware of its' tempting ham/chicken/various pork products goodness...and who can deny the succulent self juices that the log o' love is wallowing in? i'll never forget that summer when me and young becky atkins had our first taste of the forbidden half-ham/half-buffalo/half-emu pork product...the slimy, meat jello sliding down our chins in the summer sun... but i regress... spam is not spicy, unless you dress it up in something hot and sexy!

Simulated Pieces of Anonymous Mutants

[Irvu]

Hormel has made a point of suing many of the great defamers of their meat(ish) product. My personal favorite is when they sued Jim Henson for the character Spa'am leader of the Pig Pirates. The judge dismissed the case saying: "The American public can tell the difference between a puppet and a lunchmeat." (see Spam Bobbleheads, Spam Costumes and Spam Shorts. Spam Underwear has also been sold on occasion but I have yet to find any online.

You can understand why the company puts in so much effort to protect the good name though. After all Spam (Scattered Parts of Anonymous Mammals) is important to many people. Both Hawaii and Alaska love Spam. As has been noted about Alaska:

Spam® is like Alaska's only Congressman Don Young. Everyone makes fun of him, but he always wins by a landslide even though no one will ever admit voting for him. That's the story with Spam®. Nobody will admit eating it, but somebody is out there buying over 2,000 cans a day in Alaska.

For more tasty info on the Simulated Pieces of Appalling Mutants see The Amazing and Fabulous Spam Site which includes a 300 DPI Scan of SPAM

a href="

  It's funny to see how much effort the company puts into targeting the brand given that Spam is so important to

Re:Well....

[thinsoldier]

i've had lots of cats in my life
I've seen them all eat poo on many occasions
i've also seen dogs digging in my trash to snack on used kitty litter

i tried feeding spam to 4 of my cats a few years ago, 3 didnt even bother to taste it
1 ate it but threw up about an hour later

Re:Not entirely related but...

[Yvan256]

Not yet, it seems. The magic 8 ball is still more popular.

OB: Fish called Wanda

[miller701]

Or Porsche (Portia)?

Re:Well....

[just_another_sean]

And the winner is SPAM! By a landslide:

spam -email -filter: 233,000,000 results
hot dogs: 49,700,000 results

I love googlefight :-)

Answer of the day

[hellfire]

Perhaps that's where their daughter was conceived?

Re:Well....

[MrTufty]

To everyone who's replied to my comment. I should have stated that Windows wasn't a generic term for an operating system until Microsoft trademarked it.

That's what I was referring to, not the generic use of windows as a whole. Or as a hole, covered with glass.

As this whole discussion is related to a SPECIFIC use of a name as a trademark, I think some of you have been a little picky ;)