Hormel, based in Austin, Minnesota, has been selling its canned meat since 1937; but ever since spam became synonymous with unsolicited commercial e-mail messages it has struggled to protect its rights in the brand.
Hormel acknowledges that junk e-mail became known as spam after the infamous 1970 Monty Python sketch involving a restaurant that sold spam with everything.
Waitress Terry Jones, in answer to customer Eric Idle's question of what's available, replies, "Well, there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, sausage, spam, spam, bacon, spam, tomato and spam."
A group of Vikings, seated at another table, begin to chant, "spam, spam, spam, spam...." Before bursting into song: "Spam, spam, spam, spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spaaam! Lovely spam! Wonderful spam..."
It wasn't until 1994 that the term "spam" was coined for junk e-mail. In that year, two lawyers in Phoenix, Arizona, flooded newsgroups with an e-mail promoting their services. Someone (nobody seems to know who) compared it to the classic sketch in which spam was unavoidable.
Since then Hormel has tolerated the use of the term for junk e-mail, despite holding registered trade marks for SPAM in more than 100 countries. On its official SPAM site the company explains that:
"We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE [unsolicited commercial e-mail], although we do object to the use of the word "spam" as a trade mark and to the use of our product image in association with that term."
Hence the warning to Scott Richter shortly after the "Spam King" began marketing a line of hats, T-shirts and panties under the Spam-King and SK brand, with slogans such as "click it" and "just opt out".
According to a report on Newsday.com, Richter confirmed in an e-mail that he had received a cease-and-desist letter from Hormel, and that the line was on hold until the trade mark issues had been sorted out.