Spam Arrest Wins Lawsuit Against Hormel Over Spam Trademark
Seattle, Washington -- November 28, 2007
After a five year litigation, Spam Arrest wins the David and Goliath battle to keep its trademark and protect the anti-spam industry from further lawsuits
Spam Arrest LLC, which provides the popular software and services to eliminate email spam, 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 meat consumers would confuse the SPAM ARREST trademark with the notorious SPAM mark.
This week, a panel of three judges found that Hormel's trademark may be famous, but "that fame does not extend to computer software for filtering spam." The 63 page decision noted that the SPAM ARREST trademark is "Different in connotation and commercial impression" than Hormel's.
Hormel filed dozens of similar actions against other companies using the term "spam" in connection with email, including Yahoo!, Earthlink, and Google's Postini subsidiary. Most those cases settled in favor of Hormel or were suspended pending the outcome of the Spam Arrest matter.
"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."
Spam Arrest has successfully prevented billions of unwanted spam messages from reaching customer email boxes since 2001.
ABOUT SPAM ARREST
Spam Arrest LLC is a Seattle-based company that has developed a simple, patent-protected and affordable system that efficiently stops spam. The company has grown substantially and steadily since its 2001 launch, while expanding services and increasing functionality. Spam Arrest continues to monitor automated junk email techniques and upgrades automatically as necessary to protect its users. For more information visit http://www.spamarrest.com or contact via email.
FOR INTERVIEWS OR QUESTIONS
Derek A. Newman of Newman & Newman by Telephone at 206.274.2800
