The European Office of Trade Marks and Designs denied Hormel’s claim, noting that the lion’s share of Google results for the word returned webpages that made no reference at all to the food.
Hormel created the word, which is short for “spiced ham,” as part of a 1937 marketing campaign to advertise the canned meat.
Over time, the word became synonymous with all canned meats.
In 1970, the English sketch comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus used the word in a popular skit that featured Vikings shouting down dinner conversation by repeatedly chanting, “Spam! Spam! Spam!”
Since that time, computer users have come to associate the word with Monty Python’s usage, much to the delight and consternation of Hormel.
While Hormel supported Monty Python’s Broadway musical “Spamalot,” it has tried unsuccessfully to persuade European officials that software-makers who use the word in association with their email products unfairly dilute the food company’s trademark.
"We do not object to use of this slang term to describe (unsolicited commercial e-mail)," the company said on its website. “Although we do object to the use of the word ‘spam’ as a trademark and to the use of our product image in association with that term."
The EU’s decision to reject Hormel’s request for trademark protection is the most recent setback in an unsuccessful legal campaign to keep the word “spam” out of the software industry’s advertising lexicon.
Hormel has lost claims to stop such products as SpamBop, Spam Arrest and Spam Cube in the U.S. and elsewhere.
"Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, 'Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk e-mail?'"