Hormel Sues Over SpamArrest Name 526
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."
To late foo! (Score:2, Insightful)
Hormel will probably lose. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Sounds legit to me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Spam spam spam spam eggs and spam! (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh for pete's sake (Score:3, Insightful)
Now honestly, apart from college students (and most of them probably prefer Ramen noodles), who actually eats spam regularly? Don't they realize that people might hear the term, see their can on the grocery store shelf and think "oh, so that's what it was named for... wonder what it tastes like?"
You'd think they'd appreciate the free publicity.
Common Usage (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this a change in position? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not an avid Spam eater but... (Score:2, Insightful)
From the article: "...challenged Spam Arrest's applications to trademark its company name"
Re:SPAM IS good... (Score:3, Insightful)
Commonly used term (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:To late foo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To late foo! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good reputation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I read, but (Score:5, Insightful)
-- Rich
Re:To late foo! (Score:3, Insightful)
The exception to this is famous marks. Marks that everybody knows and everybody associates with a specific company. Trademarks such as Pepsi, Levis, and McDonalds fall in this category. If you saw a new product under one of these names, you would automatically assume that the product came from the famous company, not from some new entity.
Is spam a famous mark? Yes. But it is also now a famous generic term for email. Hormel should be able to stop anybody from selling a food product under the mark of SPAM. But because spam for email is generic, they should not be able to stop a company against unsolited email from including the generic term for unsolited in their name. In this context it is very unlikely to cause any confusion. Nobody will think that A computer program that deletes unwanted email named SpamDoerAwayWith was made by the makers of the meat.
Hormal not bad guys here (Score:3, Insightful)
The SPAM Example (Score:3, Insightful)
When Hormel loses the battle, and every variation of the word spam can be registered by others as a trademark, then Hormel will be held up as yet another example of why companies should not be generous with use of their trademarks, and why they have to be aggressive in suing over property rights issues.
Personally, I hope Hormel wins and that spamArrest will have to come up with a different name for their product. But is it more likely to be yet another example of how nice companies lose.
Case Closed (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, given that Spam Arrest is NOT trying to trademark "SPAM Arrest", then by the companys' own admission they don't have a case.
Let's give Hormel some credit here (Score:4, Insightful)
People keep saying that Hormel hasn't been defending their trademark, but it seems to me that they have established a clear policy on their site about how the feel about their trademark, and they've stuck consistently to it. In short, if you use "spam" generically, they don't care. If you use it in a way that associates it with their product (i.e. images of the product, or SPAM in all caps as they always do it), they'll come after you.
In this case, somebody wants to trademark the name, and they are fighting that. It seems reasonable that two trademarks containing the word "spam" could be more of a threat than widespread, non-trademarked generic usage. Their position seems reasonable and consistent. Maybe wrong, maybe right, but reasonable.
And I think that they should be given a lot of credit for this. It they were really sending out C&D letters consistently for years and years, they'd be one more of the many companies regularly mocked and griped about on /., but they haven't been. They've only taken legal action in rare cases that are more likely to affect them directly. They're using common sense, and keeping their lawyers in check, but not signing away their rights. Let's give them some credit.