There is currently a bill out there in the British Parliament that, if passed, "will make it illegal to combine words like 'games', 'medals', 'gold', '2012', 'sponsor' or 'summer' in any form of advertising." Violators can be punished by fines of up to £20,000. So basically, anyone who isn't an official sponsor must completely ignore the Olympics are taking place. Will movie studios be sued because their movies are coming out in "summer 2012"? Will developers come under fire when they issue a press release mentioning that a video game has gone gold?
Sure, the word "Windows" is an every day word and it's trademarked, but you don't see Microsoft going around suing Home Depot for selling window treatments. The difference between "Windows" and the words the IOC is trying to effectively trademark is that the IOC's words include a year and a season. Not only that, since they have sponsors in a vast number of industries (from airliners to restaurants to clothing manufacturers), they can claim that practically anything using "their" words is an infringing use of those trademarks.
How much of our every day language will companies be able to own? Will we have to eventually pay royalties for every word we post in our blog or send over IM? What if we had a word surcharge line on our cell phone bills?
You know, I have to make money to survive. I'm going to get legislation passed that prevents any advertisers from using dollar and cents signs and periods. After all, why should other people cash in at my expense?
Technorati Tags: olympics, london, trademarks, government, 2012, games
