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.'"
Poor Hormel. It's all the fault of those... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well.... (Score:4, Funny)
Trademark defense (Score:3, Funny)
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
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:Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you know?
Other brands (Score:2, Funny)
spicy ham??? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Stupid question of the day (Score:5, Funny)
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]
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It's funny to see how much effort the company puts into targeting the brand given that Spam is so important to
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
Re:Not entirely related but... (Score:3, Funny)
OB: Fish called Wanda (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well.... (Score:3, Funny)
spam -email -filter: 233,000,000 results
hot dogs: 49,700,000 results
I love googlefight
Answer of the day (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stupid question of the day (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well.... (Score:2, Funny)
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