I had a good giggle when I read this news. I heard about the SPAM lawsuit some years ago, and I thought it was a joke. Spam Arrest LLC finally won its five year legal battle against Hormel. Hormel filed suit against Spam Arrest in 2002 before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the federal administrative court charged with overseeing the national trademark office, alleging canned ham consumers would confuse the SPAM ARREST trademark with the notorious SPAM mark. Do you know anyone who would confuse the food product SPAM with a software package used to stop unsolicited email? Just because we let the FDA fool us into believing that carcinogen packed meat is safe to eat does not mean we can't tell the difference between unsolicited email and canned ham. (But that is for another blog.)
A little back ground:
- Hormel first named their canned ham SPAM in 1926.
- The word spam, meaning internet abuse, goes back as far as 1978. See this article about the Origin of the term spam.
While mulling over this topic I began to see why people might confuse the multiple means behind the homonym "SPAM".
Here they are:
- No one I know likes either type of SPAM. The very site of it turns my stomach.
- Both are equally offensive by nature and represent something foul to many people.
- I continue to be fascinated that people continue to buy into SPAM advertisements and canned SPAM enough to keep the companies behind them in business.
- Once you open either type of SPAM, you regret it.
Speaking of SPAM, I could not resist adding this clip. It is so appropriate:
Monty Python - Spam - Click here for the most popular videos
I am aware that some readers may like SPAM. Regardless, I just cannot bring myself to apologize.
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