OLYMPIC LEGISLATION
Africa’s Merchandise Marks Act (which contained specific provisions for the event) for trying to derive “special promotional benefit” from the World Cup, although the charges were later dropped.
Tere are some who think that ambush marketing is an incorrect way of describing the majority of unofficial marketing that goes on at major sports events. Dr Geoff Pearson, a lecturer in law at the University of Liverpool Management School and Director of Studies for the MBA (Football Industries) programme, says: “Some academics argue that what we’re now seeing in sport is parallel event marketing, rather than deliberate ambushes of rights holders. Ambush marketing can take many different forms; some of them unlawful and some of them perfectly lawful. I think it is difficult to have a single definition that would be acceptable to everybody.”
Pearson adds: “Te type of language that we use is very negative. We hear about ambush marketing and parasitic marketing—it’s not labelled ‘entrepreneurial’ marketing, is it? Certainly in terms of the early writings on ambush marketing in the 1980s, it was all heavily driven by the sporting organisations, highlighting the damage that this can cause to the value of sports rights. Tis may well be the case, but I’ve yet to see any scientific evidence that this actually does take place.”
“It’s oſten used in a pejorative sense because there’s a lot of anti-ambush marketing publicity from the people who organise events,” Smith says. “But when you’ve got an event like London 2012 that so dominates the national discourse, it’s not surprising that companies and brands want to be a part of that conversation.”
Performance-enhancing laws
Without exclusivity, it is difficult to see how event organisers such as LOCOG and UEFA could attract sponsors at an appropriate level and so raise the necessary funding to run the events, in addition to the public funds they already rely on.
LOCOG and UEFA protect the London 2012 and Euro 2012 brands with IP rights that are afforded to them by different pieces of legislation. A combination of registered trademarks, copyright, registered Community designs, and common law, as well as the Olympic Symbol Protection Act and the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006, cover the London 2012 brand. LOCOG protects ‘London 2012’ as a trademark, as well as the London 2012 mascots.
Interestingly, the 2006 act provides LOCOG with another way of protecting the London
2012 brand. LOCOG says the act “prevents the creation of an unauthorised association between people, goods or services and London 2012”.
Tis was, perhaps, negotiated and passed with ambush marketing in mind, says Smith. “What is very easy for companies is to conjure up a connection to an event, without using the name of that event or the specific trademarks that have been drawn up around that event,” he explains. “You could just refer to ‘the 100m final’, for example, or ‘the summer of sport in London’. Tat makes it easy to get around traditional IP protection.”
Event organisers and sponsors would find it difficult to crack down on unofficial association with an event, and without IP laws shoring up the cracks in which sophisticated ambush marketers operate, something else is needed.
Smith says: “Te answer, at least as far as the IOC (International Olympics Committee) is concerned, is to demand specific legislation that provides much broader protection. In the UK, that’s the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006. It creates the London Olympics association right, which confers on LOCOG the exclusive right to make representations in a manner likely to suggest to the public that there
Our seminar on May 7th during INTA
IPAD trademark assignment dispute in China（9am-10am） ISP's liability in Trademark infringement（10am-11am） China's Cumulative Protection of Product Shapes（2pm-3pm） Trademark squatting in China（3:30pm-4:30pm）
Meeting Room 16, Renaissance Washington DC, 999 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
www.worldipreview.com
World Intellectual Property Review May/June 2012
15
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84