An Olympic sized question, if you please

**markts** · 08-03-2009, 02:57 PM

I have a question concerning a domain that I picked up in reference to the 2016 Olympics. The host city will be chosen in October of this year and has been narrowed down to Chicago, Madrid, Rio or Tokyo. After seeing all of the fighting going on over chicago2016.com it got me thinking. I found that all Olympic names with the word ‘olympic’, ‘olympics’ or ‘cityyear’ are trademarks of the International Olympic Committee.

My domains are ‘yearcity’ Example 2016rio.com Do you think this is OK? I have been following the Olympic athletes online blogs and found them very interesting. I was thinking of building some kind of site to see an athlete perspective of the games.

Am I in trademark violation? Thanks for any input.

**tassos** · 08-03-2009, 04:27 PM

for athens2004 there was trademark issue

**markts** · 08-03-2009, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by tassos

for athens2004 there was trademark issue

I realize this. There is no question that city-year dot everything is trademarked. This is written in the IOC docs. I did not however find anything about year-city.

**Acro** · 08-03-2009, 04:52 PM

Τάσο, αφήνεις domain και πέφτουν, δες το PM σου.

**Gerry** · 08-03-2009, 05:06 PM

Yes, Year/City ... City/Year is property of the IOC. See all the cases involving the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

**Acro** · 08-03-2009, 05:19 PM

London 2012 - read all the classes it spans and faint!

**markts** · 08-03-2009, 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by Acro

London 2012 - read all the classes it spans and faint!

I just did the search for 2016LONDON

No TESS records were found to match the criteria of your query.

**Gerry** · 08-03-2009, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by markts

I just did the search for 2016LONDON

No TESS records were found to match the criteria of your query.

First, there are no olympics in London in 2016.

Secondly, the courts have found in favor of the IOC and Host City in these matters.

**markts** · 08-03-2009, 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by Doc Com

First, there are no olympics in London in 2016.

Secondly, the courts have found in favor of the IOC and Host City in these matters.

Sorry, I meant 2012. What would you suggest that I do?

**Gerry** · 08-03-2009, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by markts

Sorry, I meant 2012. What would you suggest that I do?

Lay low.

You are not the only one facing this issue...

**Doc** · 08-04-2009, 02:19 AM

Originally Posted by markts

Sorry, I meant 2012. What would you suggest that I do?

If it didn't cost you much and probably never going to use it , why not just delete it. Atleast the burden gets lifted off and technically you are not liable anymore.

**myst woman** · 08-05-2009, 11:20 AM

what about forwarding? for traffic?

**iboughta.com** · 08-05-2009, 06:02 PM

What about LondonCityGames ?

**Zak Muscovitch** · 08-07-2009, 10:45 AM

Just to give you an idea of the lengths that the organizers of the Vancouver 2010 games have gone to to protect "trademarks", check out a list of their marks from a new law they passed just in time for the games:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublicat...C-47_4&File=51

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublicat...C-47_4&File=46

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublicat...C-47_4&File=51

**markts** · 08-26-2009, 08:03 AM

Originally Posted by Doc

If it didn't cost you much and probably never going to use it , why not just delete it. Atleast the burden gets lifted off and technically you are not liable anymore.

That list of Vancouver trademarked names is impressive - Thank you Zak Muscovitch.

I noticed on this list that Vancouver2010 is trademarked however 2010Vancouver is not. Additionally 2010Vancouver net and com are in private hands. Seeing that the 2010 games will start in less than 6 months and the domains are still in private hands show me that I do have a chance to proceed without breaking any trademark laws.

I would find it difficult to delete this domain because I do plan to utilize it. The winning city will be chosen in about 40 days. I think that I'll at least wait until then before making any decisions.

**dvdrip** · 09-07-2009, 07:08 AM

It's really simple.
Use it for the city. You are ok.
Use it for the Olympics. You are in trouble.

**Electric Star** · 09-15-2009, 02:27 AM

This does not directly relate to the trademark issue, but relates to the extent that the IOC will go to defend their Olympic trademark:

Just south of Vancouver, across the US-Canada border, is a large area of Washington State known as the Olympic Peninsula. It is the home of the Olympic Mountains and home to Olympic National Park. Needless to say, many local businesses have the word "Olympic" in their name, as they have for decades.

Soon after the games were awarded to Vancouver, many of these businesses received letters from the IOC, demanding that they cease and desist from using their trademark. In this case, they finally backed down after a while. But not before many thousands of dollars in legal fees were spent locally.

It turned out well this time, but they DO vigorously defend their trademark, even if they THINK that someone might be trying to use it for their own personal gain.

**Zak Muscovitch** · 09-15-2009, 08:00 PM

Wild story! Thanks.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games Organizing Committe (VANOC) has posted a "trademark infringement calculator" of sorts on its web site....

http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/abou...wix/index.html

Very strange, but it purports to demonstrate, with a "points system", what will be considered trademark infringement and liable for enforcement, and what doesn't. Of course VANOC gets to determine how many points to give someone, so this "calculator" isnt exactly a Texas Instruments model.....Scroll down a bit on their site to see the nice illustrations....

The interesting question is how come we haven't heard of any ICANN UDRP domain name arbitration proceedings commenced against purported Olympic cybersquatters (did I just infringe a trademark?, Whoops...).....I would have thought that if there was any chance of getting these purported cybersquats and infringing domain names off the registrants in time for the Vancouver Games (how many points was that?...lol), that a massive effort would have already been underway. After all, whats the point of shutting down a mom and pop t-shirt vendor in Vancouver because of supposed trademark infringement, but not taking any action against the potentially much more massive Internet market...