Spam Arrest LLC Wins Lawsuit over SPAM Tradmark

Filed in archive Spam News on November 30, 2007

You probably get plenty of Spam, but have you ever eaten it? I'm talking about the original Spam, that spiced pork product made by Hormel. Thanks to a Monty Python skit involving a restaurant whose menu offered nothing but Hormel's kind of Spam, the junk emails-also known as unsolicited bulk emails-that make up nearly 90% of all email sent became known as spam. It wasn't too surprising then, when Hormel sued Spam Arrest LLC, makers of the popular SPAM ARREST software, in 2002 for trademark infringement claiming that consumers would confuse the two products. However, this week it was announced that Spam Arrest won the case. The panel of three judges found that while Hormel's trademark was famous, that fame didn't extend to computer software.

Hormel filed dozens of similar suits against other companies using the term Spam, including Yahoo, Earthlink, and Google's Postini. Most of the cases settled out of court in favor of Hormel or were suspended pending the outcome of Spam Arrest's case.

"Hormel retained several high priced expert witnesses in an effort to deprive Spam Arrest of its lawful use of the trademark," said Derek A. Newman of Newman & Newman, lead counsel for Spam Arrest. "Spam Arrest successfully overcame that testimony, and now Spam Arrest is not only the first company other than Hormel to achieve a federal trademark registration with the term 'spam', but also first to prevail against the processed food giant."

"We are thrilled the court affirmed our right to continue using the SPAM ARREST trademark to identify the best spam elimination software available," added Brian Cartmell, CEO of Spam Arrest. "Spam Arrest made a decision that we would not be bullied. Consumers are smarter than to confuse us with the source for meat called spam."

Hormel plans to appeal.