Hormel Loses Bid For Spam Trademark

“Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, ‘Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk e-mail?’” — Hormel site text as quoted in AP article (but damned if I can find it on their site). Hormel just want people to stop calling spam (as in email), “spam” so they tried to acquire the word as a trademark but 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.’” You can see Hormel’s point but it looks as if the fickle finger of fate has conspired against them … Also see the article in The Register for more detail.