EU Rejects Spam Maker's Trademark Bid 231
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.'"
Well.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well.... (Score:4, Funny)
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http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&w
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spam -email -filter: 233,000,000 results
hot dogs: 49,700,000 results
I love googlefight
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
indeed, what an obviously self-selected sample set. Asking the _internet_ to tell you what spam is?
I reealize this was a European court and Spam is not popular over there, but imagine what you'd get if you asked, say 100 people as they walked through the canned meats section of a supermarket.
That's about as ridiculous as asking google to tell you what it means on the internet. It's all about context.
I don't think anyone would confuse spam with just email if you invited them over for a nice spam casserole. They'd just tell you they'd rather eat cat feces, which smells the same but tastes slightly better.
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you know?
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
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
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In an European supermarket?
Of course you would meet many people that way who are not familiar with internet spam, but the "Hormel spam" is not very well known over here. I guess the definition of spam as unsolicited bul
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Which is surprising, since the name came from a Monty Python sketch that was itself an homage to the English love of the canned meat product, developed during WWII and after when it was the only reliable and healty way to ship meat to the Europeans.
Unfortunatly, almost all canned meat became known as "Spam" to GI's, even if it was awful war profiteering product tha
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I believe I speak for all present here when I declare that it is time for you to turn in your geek card. Sorry, no more slashdot for you.
Seriously though, given the frequent Monty Python references here indicating its vast popularity, I'm surprised there are folks here who haven't heard of Hormel Sp
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hormel, you're too late. About a decade too late. Stop trying to herd cats and spend your money on something that's actually achievable -- you certainly are not going to get anywhere here. The increasing backlash of corporatization of everything certainly won't help you either.
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http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=sp am&kgs=1&kls=0 [altavista.com]
2 of the top 3 results that weren't paid advertisments were for the meat. Seems the judge opened a can of worms, err spam.
Yes I know my sample is silly, that's the point.
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"You would be surprised if I told you how many people I know that make decisions based on the result of a Google Fight."
not
"You would be surprised if I told you how many people I know that make decisions based on the result of a Google."
Poor Hormel. It's all the fault of those... (Score:5, Funny)
Number One (Score:5, Informative)
SPAM search [google.com]
And what is the first item listed, you ask? Why WWW.SPAM.COM - From Hormel Foods Corporation. Includes history, fan club, and facts. [spam.com] I'm pretty sure Hormel has had to fork over a lot of money to keep them at the top of any search for SPAM, to keep the trademark from being wiped away.
Re:Number One (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is, I see no reason at all for how a trademark could become genericized merely by becoming a common word for something completely different. (Python reference intended)
The point, as I learned it, was that a trademark becomes generic when it becomes the generic term for that product. E.g. "Cola" is a generic term for a certain type of soft drink, but "Coca-Cola" is not.
"Yo-yo" used to be a trademark for a specific kind of spinning toy, but they lost it when it became the generic term for that kind of toy.
"Windows" is a generic term to begin with. But it wasn't (and still isn't) a generic term for operating system software.
Now "Spam" is indeed threatened as a trademark, since people indeed are referring canned corned beef in general as "Spam". But I can't see any relevance in whether people use the same term to refer to unsolicited email or not. It's not like there is any risk the two 'products' would ever be confused.
Re:Number One (Score:5, Insightful)
Hormel already have the tradmark for spam the meat product. They wanted the trademark for spam as unsolicited email as well.. The EU courts said no, which seems reasonable to me - that meaning of spam is part of the common language.
It's the same as Microsoft asking a court to give them the trademark to 'Windows' meaning 'pieces of glass in the side of a house'. They wouldn't get it either (well, maybe in a US court, but not in an independent one).
Isn't ... (Score:2)
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Trademark defense (Score:3, Funny)
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Yet Apple went after (and forced a name change of) a product that was just a laptop slipcase that protected the enclosed laptop from damage -- even though the name was just the dictionary definition of the item's function!
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So I have to suspect that they were only there out of fear of what might happen to their brand name in other legal area's if they didn't at least try.
ordering instructions, please (Score:5, Funny)
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
Can you keep a worthless trademark? (Score:2)
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I suspect Xerox(tm) and Kleenex(tm) would have something to say about it. For more information, try this little piece from Media Literacy Review [uoregon.edu]
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Maybe in America, however in the UK the common term is "photocopy/copier" and "tissue"
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Absolutely. In the field of business in which they operate and no other. That is well established.
.NET(tm)s
Microsoft can't ask glaziers to stop advertising the service of installing new glass in your Windows(tm), or stop someone from selling fishing
You're still allowed to play Dodge(tm) ball, or to Ford(tm)
Stupid question of the day (Score:5, Funny)
These would be the same people that will ask why makers of glass-that-fits-into-buildings-to-allow-people-to
Get a grip, Hormel.
Re:Stupid question of the day (Score:5, Funny)
OB: Fish called Wanda (Score:2, Funny)
Answer of the day (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stupid question of the day (Score:4, Funny)
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It's odd that one of the company's most famous products never seems to get advertised on tv.
(Obviously it'd be useless to get 180Solutions to help them promote it, although it'd be funny if they tried.)
Product name != term for everyday object (Score:2)
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They have billboards in Minnesota (where SPAM is manufactured and the SPAM museum is located) which are humerous in nature. Last trip through the god-forsaken state (I'm from Wisconsin), one of them made a reference to the "other" spam...
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Hormel I am afraid is going to regret not fighting this sooner. They where pretty reasonable about their trademark and now they are getting nailed.
Frankly I think this is a bad ruling. They just wanted to stop the commercial use of the the word Spam for junk email blockers and such. This seems reasonable to me.
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It doesn't matter how reasonable their wish is. Trademarks just don't work like that.
As an example of this overall idea, consider Apple vs. the Beatles company Apple, which had trademarked "Apple". Apple was OK using Apple to describe computers, as long as they didn't do music.
Did the EU really find... (Score:3, Insightful)
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But that would be about 10% of the population of the EU. For the 90% living outside Britain I would guess that only Monty Python fans will be aware that there is another meaning for the word spam besides unsollicitated bulk email.
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Maybe in the US (Score:2)
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The point of Trademark is that they are for specific contexts. Like it wasn't a problem for Apple to sell computers and that other Apple company to sell Beatles records until Apple started selling music.
So the judgement is reasonable in that they correctly ruled that a software package that claims to "prevent spam" is not going to make consumers think it will prevent
Judges comments seemed odd? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ugh (Score:2, Interesting)
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Trade marks are specific to the trade in which they are used. Otherwise the double glazing salesmen wouldn't be able to sell me windows, and the mcdonalds fish and chip shop down the road would be in real trouble.
Hormel do not product unsolicited commercial email (we hope). They definately weren't the first to do it, and the term is in the common language. They have no rights to a trademark for that use of
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Some day soon, human cloning will be possible. Unscrupulous companies will send round armies of cloned celebrities to try and sell you their products. People will call them xeroxes. Other companies will sell anti-xerox products that detect xeroxes as they come to your door (probably by consulting databases of known-cloned DNA) and hit them with hammers. Xerox will sue these companies, and lose, because no-one would confuse a c
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And, once upon a time, Xerox's name was used for another product: warez!
Yes, it's true! What delicious irony! Get it? Copies? Ho-ho!
Oh, wait, that was on ftp.xerox.com.... So, let's see.. is that trademark subversion, or not? *head exploding*
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Other brands (Score:2, Funny)
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So techinically, the Cocaine producers should be able to sue Coca-cola for stepping on their trademark 'coke'.
Although I guess coal processors could sue both of them for using the same word that originally meant "solid carbonaceous residue derived from low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal"
spicy ham??? (Score:2, Funny)
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Spices include other flavor additives including oregano, paprika, thyme, salt, pepper and many many others.
Spicy, on the other hand, implies something that is made with peppers having a non-zero Scoville [wikipedia.org] rating.
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Never. It's original name was "Spiced Ham," but the "spice" it refers to is salt.
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It is, and there is absolutely nothing to stop you doing that.
/. community the for big corporation? (Score:2)
Most telling
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Using good taste in Trademark Law (Score:2)
RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
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Hey Hormel! Read THIS NOW! (Score:2)
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eno2001, may I introduce you to the states of Alaska and Hawaii? AK and HI, this is eno2001.
Just becuase you and six people you know don't like the stuff doesn't mean there aren't enough people out there that keep buying the stuff for it to continue to be quite profitable. Why would Hormel care about their trademark so much if their food product wasn't profitable enough to justify the expense of these legal actions?
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BZZZT!!!!! And thank you for playing. Here's [sjgames.com] your lovely parting gift.
UBE is known as "spam" because of the Monty Python sketch, wherein a group of vikings kept singing the phrase "Spam", until it drowned out all other conversation, much as junk email does with your (unfiltered) inbox.
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It has to everything do with the Monty Python skit however. They're the ones (if anyone can be blamed) most responsible for the coining of the phrase. When I first heard the comment 'Spam Email'
Trademarks (Score:5, Insightful)
Does SPAM referring to "unsolicited email" confuse consumers, or misrepresent the corporate's product to unfairly compete? In this case the SPAM trademark applies to a canned meat product. The term is also in general use to refer to unsolicited email. They are separate industries, and consumers are unlikely to confuse unsolicited email with a canned meat product. Similarly, there are no concerns over unfair competition by imitation. Thus there is little harm to the consumer, nor a real concern to the corporation.
Further, the SPAM trademark owners let the term become diluted over the years to the point where it is commonly accepted; had they intervened a decade ago, their arguments would have been stronger. They are likely statutorily obligated to actively protect their trademark rights. Even if not a statutory obligation, failing to protect their rights is prejudicial in the eyes of most courts.
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Actually Hormel has been pretty consistent in trying to enforce their trademark. They started back when spam was first becoming a popular term for unsolicited bulk e-mail. It's just that most of their efforts have failed on exactly your point: that the public's not likely to confuse e-mail with a processed meat product.
Spam sales are up (Score:2)
The Specialty Foods and All Other segments continued their strong performance from the first quarter and the Grocery Products segment reported impressive growth in microwave tray items, HORMEL bacon bits and the SPAM family of products....
The All Other s
Simulated Pieces of Anonymous Mutants (Score:4, Funny)
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 [flybynightclub.com] love Spam. As has been noted about Alaska:
For more tasty info on the Simulated Pieces of Appalling Mutants see The Amazing and Fabulous Spam Site [modernsurf.com] which includes a 300 DPI Scan of SPAM [modernsurf.com]
a href="
It's funny to see how much effort the company puts into targeting the brand given that Spam is so important to
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Darn! I knew I shouldn't have used my supermarket club card when buying all that SPAM®!!! Now they know it's me.
This is the commonly accepted distinction: (Score:2, Redundant)
If it weren't for the e-mails (Score:2)
Hormel Junk Email Filtering Service (Score:2)
Then they could have successfully argued that they own the trademark "SPAM" in both industries (food and IT) and start protecting their trademark accordingly.
And, who wouldn't buy Anti-Spam(R) from the people who invented SPAM(R) in the first place?
It's worse for the Spam makers (Score:2)
With Spam, it's reverse. Spam, in the meaning of junk email, is something nobody wants. It has a bad reputation and my guess is the fear that this bad name might bleed over
This is an odd switch (Score:2)
No Such Thing As Bad Publicity (Score:2)
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That's decidedly NOT what you want your product identified with!
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Re:So, lemme get this straight . . . (Score:5, Informative)
They are not all the same.
The SCO/IBM case is (mainly) about copyright.
The Transmeta/Intel case is about patents.
Hormel's case is about a trademark.
Besides, has Hormel really actively protected their trademark ever since people started using the word "Spam" for unsolicited e-mail? I've only heard about them doing so for the last two, or perhaps three, years.
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Yes, they have (Score:2)
Quoting from the Hormel-created SPAM & the Internet [spam.com] page (which has been around for quite some time now):
Success for SCO and Transmeta is not guaranteed (Score:2)
I'd like to add that filing a lawsuit does not guarantee you win. In the case of SCO, it already seems they will suffer a massive defeat (see Groklaw.net
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Sinxe I write software foe windows, clearly I don't mind.
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On the other hand, in Soviet Russia it's often cold, no?