Anti-Spam Firm Sued Over...Spam?

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

04 July 2003

In a bizarre development in the fight against unsolicited commercial e-mails (UCE), Seattle-based SpamArrest has found itself facing a lawsuit over an alleged intellectual property rights violation...from the makers of the tinned pork product of the same name.

Minnesota-based Hormel Foods, the US manufacturer of the product, has announced in the past that: 'We do not object to the use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term.'

However, given that the company has sought to challenge the trademark recently granted to SpamArrest for 'computer software, namely software designed to eliminate unsolicited commercial electronic mail', this is clearly not the case.

Speaking to the media this week, president and CEO of SpamArrest, Brian Cartmell observed that:

'Hormel is acting like a corporate cry baby. Dozens of companies use the word 'spam' in their legal and commercial names and no one confuses any of us with the Hormel canned meat product.'

The software firm's attorney, Derek A. Newman confirmed this, suggesting that:

'Spam has become ubiquitous throughout the world to describe unsolicited commercial e-mail. No company can claim trademark rights on a generic term. SpamArrest is both our corporate name and an arbitrary trademark. We are not claiming the right to use the generic term spam alone but we will protect our company name and the brand of our product.'

The case is pending before the Trademark Trial and Appellate Board. However, Hormel was unsuccessful last year in a similar case filed with the UK Patent Office against the manufacturer of 'Spambuster' filtering software. The Patent Office ruled that users of the e-mail filtering software were unlikely to confuse the service with a canned meat product.

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