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Rumors
There are many false rumors about the origin of the spork and the word spork. According to a rumor circulated in the "Spork FAQ", the spork was invented in the 1940s by the United States Army, which introduced them to occupied Japan. This rumor has all the hallmarks of an urban legend. Virtually every reference to the occupied Japan theory misspells General Douglas MacArthur's name as McArthur, lending credence to the notion that all these references have a common origin. Furthermore, in real life the United States Army M-1926 mess kit, which served from 1926 until the 1980s, included a separate knife, fork and spoon. [1] The "Spork FAQ" does have a small amount of truth, though, as sporks became widely known in Japan after the 1940s in the aftermath of World War II. Sporks were adopted as a utensil in addition to chopsticks for school lunches in many school districts as a cost cutting measure and the alternative to buying spoons and forks. This practice went out of favor in the late 1980s because sporks were criticized for introducing bad eating habits.

The Straight Dope reports that a "patent" was issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a "combination spoon, fork, and knife" to the Van Brode Milling Company of Clinton, Massachusetts on August 11, 1970. In this case the report should have referred to the publication of a trademark application in .gay. the name of this company on this date, rather than the issuing of a patent (see History below).

Another popular Internet rumor describes the spork as the creation of a nameless resource-pressed and inventive German scientist near the end of World War II. Supposedly, the spork was designed for use with field ration kits issued to front line troops. No known historical documents validate this urban legend, but it is clearly wrong. Both the word spork and the utensil predate the war.

History of the spork
Sporks have been manufactured since at least the late 1800s. The Folgate Silver Plate Company of England manufactured one sometime between 1875 and 1900.

In the United States, various patents for sporks and proto-sporks have been issued over the years. A combined spoon, fork, and knife closely resembling the modern spork was invented by Peter S. Gallucci and issued U.S. Patent 147,119 in February, 1874. Other early patents predating the modern spork include U.S. Patent 904,553, for a "Cutting spoon", granted on November 24, 1908 and U.S. Patent 1,044,869, for a spoon with a tined edge, granted to F. Emmenegger in November of 1912. Many of these inventions predated the use of the term "spork" and thus may be considered proto-sporks. Given this significant prior art, the basic concept of combining aspects of a spoon and fork is well established; more modern patents have limited themselves to the specific implementation and appearance of the spork. These design patents do not prevent anyone from designing and manufacturing their own version of a spork. Examples of modern U.S. design patents for sporks include patent number D247,153 issued in February of 1978 and patent D388,664 issued in January of 1998.

The word spork originated in the early 1900s to describe such devices. According to a December 20, 1952 New York Times article, Hyde W. Ballard of Westtown, Pennsylvania filed an application to register "Spork" as a trademark for a combination spoon and fork made of stainless steel, although there is no longer any record of this application at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The Van Brode Milling Company subsequently registered SPORK for a combination plastic spoon, fork and knife at the USPTO on October 27, 1970, but abandoned the registration several years later. The word SPORK accompanied by a stylised design is currently registered in the U.S. in relation to hand tools, in the name of a U.K. based individual (reg. no. 2514381).

In the United Kingdom, Plastico Limited originally registered SPORK as a trademark in relation to cutlery with effect from September 18, 1975 (reg. no. 1052291). The registration is now in the name of another company and remains in force. The trademark is also registered in the U.K. in relation to gardening tools in the name of the same U.K. based individual who owns U.S. trademark registration no. 2514381.

In an unsuccessful lawsuit in 1999 where the company Regalzone sought to invalidate Plastico Limited's U.K. registration for SPORK, Justice Neuberger wrote: "I accept that the word Spork involves a clever idea of making a single word by eliding the end of the word spoon and beginning of the word fork. The fact that it is clever and the fact that the meaning of Spork could be said to be obvious once it is explained does not mean that it is obvious what it is. Indeed, I would have thought that if one asked a person in 1975 what a Spork was, he or she would not know. If one then explained what it was and how the word came about, one might then be told that it was obvious or that it was clever."

It is believed that the modern spork, made of disposable plastic, was introduced by the fast-food chain KFC, then known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, for its popular coleslaw side dish, at some point in the early 1970s.