[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by robot180

I was wondering if FIRST should have periods after each letter like a proper acronym. What I did was I put it without when used alone and with when used alongside S.P.A.M. since spam must officially have periods to be legal (as opposed to the copyrighted trademark of Hormel). I use the periods in that case so it does not look awkward having one acronym with periods and one without.

Therefore, should we use either or should we only use one of those forms?

I am a senior marketing professional who deals with trademarks as part of my job. We wrote to the Navy to get official permission to use the Top Gun logo for our team. The truth is that if you are not using "Spam" for commercial purposes, and do not use the Spam logo that Hormel uses, you are incredibly unlikely to run into trouble with Hormel. Putting periods between the letters doesn't make it any less likely that they will view your use of "SPAM" as a mark infringement, either. My recommendation is that you go ahead and use SPAM without the periods and stop worrying about it. If you want to worry, the periods won't help you. I recommend that you write to Hormel's customer relations department and let them know how you are using "SPAM" and get their permission. Good luck.