SPAM® – The Untarnishable Meat (Video Content)

SPAM is a famous trademark owned by Hormel Foods used for the last seventy-five years in connection with a canned product made of "100% pure pork and ham."

In  Hormel Foods Corp. v. Jim Henson Prods., 73 F.3d 497 (2d Cir. 1996), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that use of the name "Spa'am" for a porcine type character in one of the late Jim Henson's popular Muppet movies did not cause dilution the famous SPAM mark owned by Hormel.  Hormel filed suit claiming that it considered the Muppet form "grotesque" and "untidy" and worried that the association between its meat product and the similarly named character might place the wholesomeness of Hormel's product in a poor light.