Trademark Management at the Olympics is Priority for Top Brands and Athletes
Not only is the Rio Olympics showcasing some of the greatest athletic talents in the world this summer, but the Games will also be showcasing how some companies utilize effective trademark management practices. One area of the games that highlights these practices more than most is the track and field events. With global superstars such as Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, and Allyson Felix, to name a few, taking to the starting blocks in Rio, many brands have created sponsorship deals with these high-profile stars and are utilizing them as moving billboards, incredibly fast, moving billboards. The most important, and often most recognizable, piece of equipment for Olympic track and field athletes are the shoes that they sport while they compete. For shoe companies like Nike, Adidas, and Puma these track shoes are the most important piece of advertising for their brand, showcasing to the world how their products help the greatest athletes across the globe bring home the gold. However, some of these sponsorship deals are creating unforeseen problems for many Olympic athletes. For example, Jeremy Taiwo, a U.S. decathlete that has to wear eight different pairs of shoes for his ten events in the decathlon, is sponsored by Brooks, but Brooks does not design shoes for the throwing and jumping events. Taiwo’s deal with Brooks allows for him to wear shoes developed by rival companies for these events, with one caveat, Taiwo must cover the logos of Brooks’ competitors while he competes at the Olympics. For athletes like Taiwo, the benefits of these sponsorship deals are worth the minor inconvenience of having to tape or paint over a competitor’s logo. Violating the terms of these agreements can also have grave outcomes for many athletes. In 2013, Nike withdrew a contract offer to record-holding, American pole vaulter, Brad Walker, after Walker taped over a strap on his shoe and mistakenly covered Nike’s famous swoosh logo.
Athletes in lucrative sponsorship deals are not the only ones that can be seen taping over the logo of their shoes during the Games; many unsponsored athletes have taken up the practice, albeit for entirely different reasons. Many unsponsored athletes on the track are concealing logos so as not to provide free advertising to these brands, or as some call it, “No representation without compensation.” Whatever the motivation, companies and athletes alike have made trademark management one of their top priorities both on and off the track.
For more information on this topic, please visit our Trademark Management service page, which is part of our Trademarks practice.
Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX. The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights. The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution. Additional information about the intellectual property law firm and its intellectual property attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.
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