Trying to Make Sense of Olympic Trademarks
The front page of the Vancouver Sun today (Thursday, March 29, 2007) features an interesting article on the official marks registered by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Games (“VANOC”) and the Canadian Olympic Committee. The article notes that VANOC has rights to FRIEND as an official mark and could potentially bring legal proceedings if someone attempts to use it in connection with a business.
According to VANOC, they have no intention of preventing the use of words like “friend” on their own. They are, however, concerned about ambush marketing in the lead up to the 2010 Olympic Games and intend to prevent persons who are not properly licensed from marketing wares and services that suggest a connection with the Games.
It may be up to the courts to determine whether ordinary words like “friend” can be official marks. The Vancouver Sun article references an Alberta case (Canadian Olympic Association v. Hipson) that arose in the lead up to the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics in which the court questioned the Association’s right to claim “winter” and “1988″ as official marks.
What the Vancouver Sun article does not discuss is the proposed legislation now before Parliament which we discussed in an earlier blog and which, if enacted, will extend the power of VANOC even further.
This entry was posted by Larry Munn on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Branding, Protection & Enforcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7 Responses to “Trying to Make Sense of Olympic Trademarks”
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Even though ‘friend’ might be a word in Public domain, the Olympic Committee has to ensure protection over it during the olympics because of the experiences it faced from ambush marketers in the past. It was only from Sydney olympics, that the OC was able to maintain atleast some control over the ambush marketers. In Sydney they used event specific anti-ambush marketing legislation.. In Vancouver we are just seeing a repetition of what OC did at Olympics.. There is nothing to worry abt….. FOr all those who love games, there needs to be a control over ambush marketing…
This isn’t just about Vanoc of course. From Parliament’s point of view, the overidding question should be about the public interest. How a piece of legislation, giving what is essentially a commercial entity broad discretion in securing trade marks, could be in the public interest, is beyond me.
The reason that is often trotted out is that Canada is on show. This is a sweeping generalization that is unworthy of further discussion.
“There is nothing to worry about” – How do we know? What evidence do we have? Safeguards?
[...] Mehr zum Thema Vancouver 2010 und Markenschutz findet sich auch beim Canadian Trademark Blog und der Vancouver Sun. [...]
I happen to be the owner of the domain name 2010.mobi and am intending to sell it because it has a very high potential value as a cell phone web site address that is very easy to remember, and very easy to type in (no alpha keys, nice and short). (The .mobi domain name went live in September 2006 and is designed specifically for “mobile” devices such as cell phones. Check out http://www.mtld.mobi/ for details.)
However, because “2010″ is a trademarked “expression” owned by VANOC I am faced with 2 challenges: I am considered a cybersquatter; and the only buyers of this domain name that could use it with regards to the 2010 Games are Sponsors and Partners.
I could actually live with the latter, because there are enough Sponsors and Partners to make it interesting to see who out of Bell, CTV, Rogers, NBC and the European Broadcasting Union might want to own this domain and brand it so that 100 million cell phone users from around the world can appreciate them for bringing athlete profiles, event replays, medal information, ticket information, local TV station scheduling, and more right to their cell phones any time of day or night.
However, as a cybersquatter I am considered unscrupulous or worse. Were 2010 not trademarked I would be considered opportunistic and visionary in acquiring this domain name.
A representative from Vancouver2010 called me on April 5 and told me, among other things, that VANOC had not purchased 2010.mobi themselves because they considered it to be too “general”. I think they (and the others) were simply short-sighted, and not thinking about the fact that in 3 years most cell phones will be connected to the Internet and/or used as small, mobile televisions. My opposing the trademark at this point is not possible because I only had 60 days after it was published back in 2004. Anyone have any ideas or want to help me navigate a legal path forwards? My cell phone number is 604-786-2858.
Further to my earlier comment today, I have since realized that in fact at most I can be accused of accidental cybersquatting. When I purchased the 2010.mobi domain name about 1 month ago I was not aware that “2010″ had been trademarked by VANOC. I presumed that “2010″ was not trademark-able, whereas something like “2010 Olympics” or “Vancouver 2010 Games” would be trademark-able. Cybersquatting, according to Wikipedia, is “… registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.” I did not do this.
I am hopeful that this will make a difference in my attempts to sell this domain name at fair value.
Not meaning to be tedious, but there is an interesting twist to the 2010 trademark issue that I commented on about 2 weeks ago. First of all, none of the 2010 Olympics partners, sponsors or Vancouver 2010 organizing committee have expressed any serious interest in this domain name, which I find surprising. I had thought the only issues would have been who wanted it most, and what market value it had. It is possible they do not (yet) see the value in it, when compared to their current internet and cell phone plans. Or maybe I am too optimistic. Whatever: I have turned to marketing it to the 2010 FIFA World Cup sponsors, partners and media instead. It is being held June 11 to July 11, 2010 in South Africa. And there are no trademark restrictions on “2010″ in their case.
The smart cell phone slash media company would, in my opinion, use this domain for both these big events, since there would be about 3 months between the end of the Paralympics and the start of the World Cup. But maybe there is too much fear of the legal issues, and fear of budget overruns that are driving decisions at this point, 3 years in advance of the real deal?
[...] We recently reported on concerns that the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Games has regarding ambush marketing. Ambush marketing occurs when persons who are not properly licensed, market their wares and services in a manner which suggests a connection with the Games, often resulting in trade-mark infringement of protected Olympic marks. [...]