Welsh Company Claims First EU Spam Trademark

A small Welsh technology company, NetBop Technologies, is claiming to be the first to get a European trademark for a product name containing the word “spam.”

According to NetBop, Hormel challenged the company in March 2005 for its attempt to trademark SpamBop, a product designed to filter bulk unsolicited e-mail.

Hormel threw in the towel when it became clear in a preliminary hearing that EU patent officials were leaning in NetBop’s favor, a statement from NetBop said.

The settlement, announced last week, means NetBop can use the spam name in its product as long as it keeps it lowercase, according to the company.

Before this settlement, other companies were reportedly allowed to use the word spam in their logos, but not in the names of their products.

“We are ecstatic with the outcome as for a while it did look like we would have to change the product name,” said NetBop’s managing director, Andrew Downie, in a statement. “We would never have dreamed there would be such an issue with securing a created name which contains a word used in people's everyday lives.”

A Hormel spokeswoman said the company had no comment.