New MRE bag designs

[kman]

I was just checking out the latest updates to the MRE Assembly Requirements (which is the doc that specifies what goes into the MREs, how they're packed, what they look like, etc.) and saw this huge change on page 14:

From: ACR-M-028: Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE), Assembly Requirements

B. Meal bag. Each meal bag shall be correctly and legibly labeled on at least one face with permanent ink or other dark contrasting color with the information contained in accordance with Figures 1, 2 or 3, as applicable. The label shall cite the correct Menu number, name of entrée, name and address of assembler, and cite "Vegetarian" when appropriate. Menus 1-4, and 13-16 shall be printed in accordance with Design 1 (Figure 1). Menus 5-8 and 17-20 shall be printed in accordance with Design 2 (Figure 2). Menus 9-12 and 21-24 shall be printed in accordance with Design 3 (Figure 3).

And here are the new designs:


Wow...that's quite a change. But then again, they've had the current bag designs since 1996. I don't know when these new designs are supposed to go into production (if they haven't already) but I'd guess it'll be sometime in 2008 after the manufacturers run out of their stock of the old designs.

Jan. 25, 2008 Update:
I did a little photoshopping and put together these pics of what the new MRE bags might look like. Click on the pics for bigger versions:



Jan. 26, 2008 Update:
New web page added to the main site. This page covers current and past designs and talks more about the new design changes and how they were tested:

http://www.mreinfo.com/us/mre/mre-bag-design.html

[Plissken]

Very interesting...
I kind of like the 3rd design, but all of them seem a little too cluttered.

Will the color remain tan or...?

[kman]

Here are the details of the meal bag from the ACR:

(3) Meal bag. The meal bag shall be made from food grade, low density polyethylene (LDPE) tubing or tubing made from a blend of food grade, low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE). Additives may be used in order to improve sealability, peelability, tear resistance or other attributes provided all additives are food grade and are certified by the FDA as approved for food contact. Polyethylene shall have a minimum thickness of 0.010 inch. Inside dimensions of the bag shall not exceed 8-1/8 x 12-1/2 inches. The color of the bag shall conform to number 20219, 30219, 30227, 30279, 30313, 30324 or 30450 of FED-STD-595, Colors Used in Government Procurement. One seal shall be a minimum 1/8 inch wide, continuous, peelable seal that forms a hermetic closure. The seal shall be designed with an inverted “V” shaped peel indicator along the seal path. There shall be a minimum of 1/2 inch between the apex of the “V” and the end of the bag. The seal strength of the peelable seal shall be not less than 4 pounds per inch of width and shall be not greater than 10 pounds per inch of width.

I highlited the portion above that pertains to the bag color. Those color codes match the same codes in the previous ACR so it looks like the bag color will remain the same tan color.

[MREdepot]

Wow, that's going to take a little getting used too.

Interesting that they put that whole "warfighter approved" tag on each bag - sounds almost like a sales pitch on a commercial product that you would see in the grocery store. Maybe they plan to try and sell these to more foreign governments in the near future, as that seems a bit tacky coming from a DoD who has a history of plain, clean and just the facts.

Also, did you notice it appears that they have trademarked the name MRE? I wonder if they can do that? There's so much prior art on the market from many years ago in the commercial and civilian sector with the words MRE that it may be considered generic at this point...

[kman]

Interesting...I didn't notice the MRE trademark at first. But that kind of makes sense. I've heard from other civilian MRE vendors that they are actively discouraged from calling their products "MREs".

Notice how Sopakco calls their Sure-Pak 12's "Fully Prepared Meals" and Ameriqual calls their aPacks Ready Meals "Self-Heating Emergency Meals". MREStar labels theirs "Complete Meals" but they can get away with having "MRE" on their cases because it's part of their name.

[MREdepot]

Interesting...I didn't notice the MRE trademark at first. But that kind of makes sense. I've heard from other civilian MRE vendors that they are actively discouraged from calling their products "MREs".

Notice how Sopakco calls their Sure-Pak 12's "Fully Prepared Meals" and Ameriqual calls their aPacks Ready Meals "Self-Heating Emergency Meals". MREStar labels theirs "Complete Meals" but they can get away with having "MRE" on their cases because it's part of their name.

Yeah, good point on the commercial MREs. I have heard the same thing from MRE vendors as well, but only from the one's actively selling the the military - like it's a professional courtesy or something.

I would think that if they decided to try and crack down on it, even if it was in your name you would have a hard time fighting it unless your name was MRE Star (or MRE Depot, MRE Wholesalers, MRE Foods, etc. for that matter ) long before the first MREs were produced or even in testing a couple of years before production... That's actually a scary thought!

[kman]

For anyone interested, here's some background on what it means to be Trademarked:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

A trademark or trade mark is a distinctive sign or indicator of some kind which is used by an individual, business organization or other legal entity to uniquely identify the source of its products and/or services to consumers, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. A trademark is a type of intellectual property, and typically comprises a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements.

Fundamental concepts

The essential function of a trademark is to exclusively identify the commercial source or origin of products or services, such that a trademark, properly called, indicates source or serves as a badge of origin. The use of a trademark in this way is known as trademark use. Certain exclusive rights attach to a registered mark, which can be enforced by way of an action for trademark infringement, while unregistered trademark rights may be enforced pursuant to the common law tort of passing off.

It should be noted that trademark rights generally arise out of the use and/or registration (see below) of a mark in connection only with a specific type or range of products or services. Although it may sometimes be possible to take legal action to prevent the use of a mark in relation to products or services outside this range (eg. for passing off), this does not mean that trademark law prevents the use of that mark by the general public. A common word, phrase, or other sign can only be removed from the public domain to the extent that a trademark owner is able to maintain exclusive rights over that sign in relation to certain products or services, assuming there are no other trademark objections. For a case study in both concepts, see Apple Corps and its disputes with Apple, Inc.

[MREdepot]

Enforcing a Trade Mark on this will definately be a long and expensive battle, but I can't think of anyone who has deeper pockets to potentially undertake it.

It could also be used with eBay to stop the selling or MRE's in general, since they have not been able to do much about it in the past. eBay will yank any listings without warning for Trademark infringement - and listing MRE in the title or anywhere in the description could be an issue if they decide to enforce.

I've been reading up more on the new designs, and it is interesting to note that they actually want to put all three different bags in each case - they're not just going to pick one. I'm not sure what the advantage will be, but the manufacturers will now have to print three different blanks rather than just one...

[kman]

I have to wonder about what you said about them using trademark infringement to stop eBay auctions. I mean, maybe if someone was trying to sell fake MREs as the real thing, they would have a case. But to me, that sounds like Apple trying to stop all eBay Macintosh auctions because people are selling things marked with an Apple trademark.

After all, "MRE" is perfectly descriptive of what's being sold when it's an actual military MRE.

Of course, just because they don't have a case wouldn't stop them from trying. :-)

[MREdepot]

That would be true except for a couple of points I would think;

1) In your example of Apple, iPod’s and iPhone’s are specifically targeted for and sold to the public. Therefore any new sales, refurbished sales and even used private sales of Apple’s product would not be a problem. MREs on the other hand are Government property and technically are never supposed to be sold as new, used or surplus to the public. They could have a strong case in eBay’s mind if they choose to go this route...
2) Surepaks, aPacks, and every other commercially legal MRE could not be called an MRE. eBay has very strict rules on things like this if the manufacturer chooses to enforce it. That’s why you’ll never see titles or descriptions of a knock-off Gucci bag say something like “Gucci”, “Gucci Look-alike” or “same as Gucci” - they call it keyword spamming and terminate the listing immediately (when reported). And, in theory that’s why you never see a knock-off bag in general - Gucci (and therefore eBay) wouldn’t allow, so they sell fakes bags as authentic instead.

I think you are most likely correct in that “MRE” is perfectly descriptive of what’s being sold on the market, but let’s not forget that Kleenex tried to Trademark “Tissue” (and lost), and Xerox tried to Trademark “Copier” (and lost as well). But if they get a bug up their butt and want to try, not many people will be able to fight it, since you have to consider the the huge MRE manufactures won’t argue because they won’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.

And I don’t know for sure, but I don’t believe they can randomly target just fake MREs without having to target all MREs. Similarly if they are planning to enforce “MRE”, then I would expect that “Meal, Ready-To Eat” will be next. Then good luck trying to search anything on eBay under those terms if they go that route...

But lets not give them any ideas!!