Olympics Tries To Block Olympian Newspaper (From Olympia, Washington) From Trademarking Its Name
from the and-the-gold-medal-in-trademark-pushyness-goes-to... dept
It's no secret that the Olympics can be ridiculously over aggressive with trademark claims, often getting governments to pass special intellectual property rules to allow the Olympics special control over certain names or phrases well outside the contours of existing intellectual property law. The various Olympic committees insist they "need" this to protect their revenue stream, but we didn't realize that gov'ts had any responsibility in helping the Olympics make lots of money. The latest move is that the US Olympic Committee is protesting a trademark application for the name of The Olympian, a newspaper in Olympia, Washington (thanks to Erik for sending that in). It would appear that the Olympian has been operating since 1889. That would be seven years prior to the first modern "Olympics" in 1896.While I am left wondering why the Olympian suddenly decided to try to register the trademark on its name now (leading to the attempt to block the trademark), it does seem pretty ridiculous that the Olympics could suddenly claim that there might be confusion between the two after over a century of the two "brands" living together peacefully.
Filed Under: olympia, olympian, olympics, trademark, washington
