In a series of Blogs we are going to consider the trademark issues affecting businesses ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games:
1) What are the “Olympic Trade Marks”?
2) What legal protection do those Olympic Trade Marks have?
3) Who can use the Olympic Trade Marks?
4) What will the Olympic Commission do if you infringe their Olympic Trade Marks?
Lets get started with…
What are the “Olympic Trade Marks”?
The Olympic Trade Marks have been heavily protected, but what are they?
Following the announcement of the Games coming to London in 2012, The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Limited (Referred to as the “Olympic Commission”) began to register a myriad of trade marks which included all of the official names, phrases and logos which could be related to the 2012 Games and the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. In fact, even before the announcement of 6 July 2005 and as far back as 2003, the British Olympic Association was registering “London 2012” logos!
The Olympic Trade Marks include the following logos:
The Olympic Symbol
The Paralympic Symbol
The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Emblems
The London 2012 mascots
The Team GB logo
The Paralympics GB logo
The British Olympic Association logo
The British Paralympic Association logo
…. the following words:
“London 2012”, “Olympic”, “Olympiad”, “Olympian”, “Paralympic”, “Paralympiad”, “Paralympian” and even their plural versions as well as words very similar to them for example “Paralympix”
… and even the Mottos: “Citius Altius Fortius” (which means “Faster Higher Stronger”) “Spirit in Motion”…
… and Domain Names such as www.london2012.com.
To view the full range of the Olympic Trade Marks we refer you to the Official London 2012 website.
Click on the links below to read the additional blogs in our series on the Olympic Trade Marks: What legal protection do those Olympic Trade Marks have? Who can use the Olympic Trade Marks? What will the Olympic Commission do if you infringe their Olympic Trade Marks?
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