Archive for the ‘Famous Marks’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »VANOC Gets Sour Taste From Lululemon
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Vancouver based yoga wear retailing phenom Lululemon Atletica has tweaked the nose of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), with a new line of clothing. A story yesterday reported that Lululemon has introduced a new line of clothing named “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition”. VANOC reportedly is upset that Lululemon has only complied with the letter and not the spirit of the laws in Canada that protect the various trademarks used to promote the Olympic Games generally, and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games specifically.
The clothing line in question features various items in the national colours of Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Germany. Notably, the Canadian hoodies feature gold zippers while the zippers in the colours of other countries have silver zippers. Lululemon lost out to the Hudson’s Bay Company in its bid to be the official apparel supplier to the Canadian Olympic team for the Summer and Winter Games during the period from 2006 to 2012.
Readers of the Knowledge Bytes newsletter will be aware of the legislative hammers that are at VANOC’s disposal to enforce its trademark rights against both would-be infringers and ambush marketers alike. These include the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act, which contains lists of specific words that either can’t be used at all, or that can’t be used in combination with other specific words–for example the combination of “Vancouver” and “2010″.
Posted in Domain Names, Famous Marks, Protection & Enforcement, Trade-mark Oppositions | Comments Off
Trademark Clearinghouse To Help Combat Cybersquatting?
Friday, July 17th, 2009
A story earlier this week reported that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the organization charged with oversight of the Internet, including the creation of new generic top level domains (gTLD’s) – is considering setting up a centralized database of trademarks to help combat cybersquatting and other negative domain name registration practices. The proposed IP Clearinghouse would be a depository for trademarks and provide unified rules for trademark holders to block domain name registrations that include use of such trademarks, unless the applicant can prove that its proposed use will be legitimate.
This proposal will be closely monitored by the trademark community as ICANN continues to move forward with its controversial proposal to exponentially expand the number of gTLDs. The concern of trademark holders is that the task of protecting their brands online, which is already difficult enough with the existing gTLDs, will become prohibitively expensive.
The idea of the IP Clearinghouse was one of the recommendations outlined in the Final Report on Trademark Protection of ICANN’s Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT). At the recent ICANN meeting in Sydney, the IRT presented its report. The IRT Final Report was open for public comment until June 29, 2009. ICANN might not make a final decision on the idea until late 2009, at which time it could potentially decide on a variation of the IP Clearinghouse, depending on the public comments that it receives.
Though it appears to be a moving target at the moment, the launch of the new gTLDs could potentially take place as early as February or March of 2010.
Posted in Domain Name Disputes, Domain Names, Famous Marks, Protection & Enforcement | Comments Off
PETA Clubs Olympics for Anti-Sealing Campaign
Friday, June 12th, 2009
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has launched a new “spoof” website in its stated bid to convince the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) that it should help in the campaign to end the Canadian seal hunt.
It will be interesting to see what response VANOC has to this, presumably unauthorized, use of its trademarks and copyright protected images by PETA. Both the Copyright Act and the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act contain provisions permitting use of protected trademarks and works for purposes of criticism, however, in this case the criticism is of something seemingly unrelated to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
The PETA spoof website has already attracted criticism from the leader of the national Inuit organization in Canada.
Posted in Famous Marks | 1 Comment »