Covering Up Any Brand In Beijing That Hasn't Paid To Sponsor The Olympics
from the ip-insanity dept
Every time you think that the Olympics' bizarre obsession with extra-ordinary protections on intellectual property took a step beyond ridiculous, you were probably just underestimating the International Olympic Committee, who will just keep going further and further. You may recall the efforts put forth by the IOC to get special trademarks on certain words, like 2010 and Vancouver and 2012 and London, since that's where the next two Olympics will take place. While it seems ridiculous to be able to get trademarks on such things (and goes against the very purpose of trademark law), politicians seem to bow down to the Olympics. But that was just the start.The Olympics has threatened any non-sponsor advertiser from even mentioning the Olympics, banned people in the stands from wearing clothing that has the logos of competitors to sponsors and even insisted that its security technology choices would be limited to sponsors, even if others had better technology.
The latest, however, may be the most ridiculous. All over Beijing, the brands of non-sponsors are being covered up by Olympic officials so that no one thinks that faucet maker American Standard got a "free ride." Seriously. They're putting tape over the brand name on faucets. And on light switches. And the headphones used by reporters and many other places where perfectly normal brands might occur. They've even covered up the name of a major hotel in Beijing, because it's not an Olympic sponsor.
In media centers, dormitories and arena bathrooms, pieces of tape cover logos of fire extinguishers, light switches, thermostats, bedroom night tables, soap dispensers and urinals. The Taiden Industrial translation headsets in a large conference room have had their logos covered, as have the American Standard faucets in the bathrooms nearby, and the ThyssenKrupp escalators down the hall. Even the sign atop the InterContinental Beijing Beichen hotel, attached to the Main Press Center, has been obscured by an Olympic cloth wrap. InterContinental Hotels Group isn't an Olympic sponsor.Why? Well, the IOC claims that it's necessary:
The International Olympic Committee says that such "brand protection" is essential for the Games to raise the corporate money that keeps them going and growing. The Games get 40% of their revenue from sponsors, with the rest coming from broadcast rights, ticketing and licensing.A few quick responses to that whopper of a statement:
- The purpose of trademark law is not to protect the ability of the Olympics to make a profit. It's to avoid people being confused into thinking one product is made by someone else.
- Even if it's important for the Olympics to make money off of sponsors, it's difficult to see why that would necessitate blocking everyone else's brands. No other event does this, and those events make out just fine.
- Couldn't some of the covered up brands make the exact same response back? American Standard sold its faucets at a certain price, knowing that it would get some brand recognition from having its brand on the faucets. By blocking that, aren't the Olympics denying American Standard's "essential brand protection" that it needs to keep making money?
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Filed Under: beijing, international olympic committee, olympics, trademarks
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Hey, somebody quick TM those names !?
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Greed is not good.
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Re:
Pure O2 will get you high, and eventually kill you.
Polluted O2 will put toxins in your bloodstream, and eventually kill you.
100% Pure H2O will will give you diarrhea--dehydrate you.
Polluted/Salty H2o will kill you too.
And so on...
Anything carried to ludicrous extremes will eventually kill you.
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Re:
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New Olympic Sport
Working only from memory and armed with color-coded 3 inch wide rolls of Olympic Symbol tape, the competitors race into the stands and tape off branding logos being worn by the spectators. Scoring is a complex task taking into account "Time", "Total Items Covered", "Mistakes Made", "Area of the Polygon in the Stands Searched" and my personal favorite, special bonus points for locating and taping over the mouths and noses of any intellectual property attorneys in the stands.
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Corporate Pressure
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covering up
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Re:
Intolerance, such as telling others to "shut up", is also a hallmark of both systems.
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I wonder how the british people are going to feel when when the IOC tries this.
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But be advised: Your excellent journalism and righteous outrage will mean approximately nothing. The corporations and the governments they now direct will roll right over the common sense of law, the sovereignty of countries, and the common interest of consumers.
All we are for is working, borrowing and spending. There is a worldwide assault on the middle and working classes and it will not stop until our standard of living is barely above poverty, and we work 80 hours a week to pay off the credit cards with which we bought the consumer "goods".
It's way too late to expect your pitiful righteous outrage to do any good. Are you ready to turn your back on your sucking consumerist lifestyle?
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How low can they go?
GP
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Re: How low can they go?
At least for the Greeks the games were as much a show of military prowess as anything else. And you can bet your sweet bippy that the people of Olympia and the Oracle there weren't giving anything away for free.
Mind you, the ancient games tended to be blood sports and performed in the nude.
I wonder if that was still true today....
(giggles)
ttfn
John
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Nothing gets
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Isn't that Special
I thought that you could not patent, copyright or trademark a number. If you can, I guess Intel would like to know.
Remember the 486 ?
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International treaties and "special law" legislation protect various trademarks from competitive registrations from others, such as Smokey The Bear, the Red Cross, and the Olympics: Section 103(4) of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, 36 U.S.C. 373(4), which defines Corporation as the United States Olympic Committee, and Section 110 of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, 36 U.S.C. 380, which provides to the Corporation exclusive rights in specified Olympic symbols and terms for one of the organizations responsible for organizing and presenting the Olympic Games, and so on.
==
Earlier: "... I thought that you could not patent, copyright, or trademark a number. If you can, I guess Intel would like to know. Remember the 486 ? ..."
Don't confuse unrelated things:
1 - you can USE anything in a trademark, you just can't successfully REGISTER anything with the US Trademark Office.
2 - Intel lost "486" because it was DESCRIPTIVE, meaning that "486" merely described the product (four 8086 chips on one chip), so they were denied REGISTRATION.
Go to the USPTO Trademark web site and search for any number ("1", "2" and so on) and find many numbers used in trademark registrations as a source identifier for good or services:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk
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Wh at we have in the opening story is an unattributed insanity, and speculations as to the source - high muck-a-mucks*, or just wanna-be underlings in the IOC or the PRC.
The difference?
==
* "high muck-a-muck" is a loose interpretation of Native American "hayo makamak" meaning "the well fed"
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Re: Off topic
"Native American" is not a language. Try again. Also that change in pronunciation from one language to another is not interpretation, but I think referred to as corruption.
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The Olympics
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Re: Only in Beijing
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Face and the farce?
Try this scenario:
1. original instruction cover brands that could be seen with the rings clearly implying a sponsorship relationship.
2. Some over zealous flunky ran riot with the tape.
3. Some Journo asks a higher level flunky "what the huh?"
4. Higher level flunky defends the lower level flunky's actions without checking the facts.
5. Hilarity ensues.
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I was in the Bird's Nest last night and no one was looking at what logo's were on people's clothing. Like many things in China a lot of rules & regulations are announced but not always enforced.
The security procedures to get into venues are tight but some of the measures such as the matching of real names and photos to tickets to prevent scalping simply never happened. At some venues they do take your photo when you present your ticket but its meaningless as they never took photos when people bought the tickets. Most of my tickets have come from a scalper and I haven't had any problems.
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Re:
What, you mean they are breaking into people's homes all over Beijing to cover up the brands of their faucets? Thanks for clearing that up for us, Captain Obvious.
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During the most recent World Cup of Soccer/Football, fans wearing a piece of clothing of a certain brand of beer was not allowed in the stadiums, because the brand hadn't paid for sponsorship.
And I believe that in the previous Olympic Games it also happened.
The IOC is not about the games anymore, it's about money, greed and power.
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This has nothing to do with them. This is about the IOC, and international capitalist body. It's based in Switzerland, headed by a Belgian and even has members from your glorious homeland helping to make these decisions.
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Word "Sport" must be protected
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Re: Word "Sport" must be protected
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Its ironic
Screw the Olympics. Who needs corporate crap packaged as wholesomeness?
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...
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heheh
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Free Tape
Ha, then start covering up all of the official sponsors' names with the tape you liberated.
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The Pirate Bay
Too bad Sweden has laws against ministers handling specific cases. :)
Still, it's pretty ridiculous.
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and urinals."
What is the punishment for urinating on their tape ?
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