Much Ado About Spam

Spam – do you eat it or delete it? That seems to be the “meat” of the legal trademark brouhaha pitting Hormel, makers of the celebrated meat mixture, against Spam Arrest, developers of technology to weed out unwanted e-mail.

Hormel’s Spam has been around for 70 years; Spam Arrest has been guarding email in-boxes since 2001. So what’s the legal beef?

As reported by ABC News/Nightline, Hormel is entrenched in a long-running, multi-million dollar trademark dispute with Spam Arrest.

Hormel wants to ensure that its Spam doesn’t get confused with anything else or have another company profit from the 70-year-old Spam name. It claims the name Spam is under assault when another company attempts to use its name inappropriately.

According to Nightline, Spam Arrest’s attorneys say consumers know the difference between the food product and email spam-elimination software.

A Northwestern University law professor interviewed by Nightline says Hormel’s legal tussle has a point, since trademark law requires the holder to defend the mark or lose it. Yet, this law professor doesn’t think consumers are confused between the food and cyber tool.
 
“One you eat, the other you delete,” is how Nightline summed it up.

Legal issues aside, Nightline points out Hormel has a corporate sense of appropriate Spam humor, as evidenced by its sponsorship of the musical ”Spamalot” and its screening of Monty Python’s “lovely Spam” skit at the Spam Museum in Austin, Minn.