AlanBarber.Org
Thursday, July 03, 2003
Hormel fights to take back spam
It's reported in The Seattle Times that Hormel Foods, the maker of spam, has filed a lawsuit against a Seattle company named Spam Arrest that makes anti-junkmail software. Obviously, Hormel does have a right to protect their name. However at the same time the term has become widespread in an alternate meaning. When a word becomes an accepted term for a non-related item/idea/etc in my opinion you loose any claim to it.
I mean sure if some company made a spam-like product and called it spam then that would be a trademark issue. But when you use spam to reference junk email you can't really claim any product that uses the word spam in their anti junkmail product is infringing on a trademark.
They aren't using the spam logo, they aren't claiming it to be a food product. Where's the harm?
I say relax Hormel. Why not try to work together with people instead of against them!
on 07/03/2003 at 11:15 PM