FIFA claims vanishing spray patent win
FIFA is claiming victory in a long-running and occasionally bitter patent dispute over the vanishing spray used by football referees when awarding free kicks.
According to a statement from football’s world governing body issued this week, the State Court of Rio de Janeiro has dismissed “in its entirety” patent infringement claims filed against FIFA by Brazilian company Spuni.
The decision comes as a blow for Brazilian inventor Heine Allemagne, who first began working on developing ‘Spuni’ vanishing spray for football matches in 2000.
The spray is used by referees to mark out the correct distance between a free kick taker and the wall formed by opposition players to defend the set piece.
It first came to the attention of the global public at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, although Allemagne had supplied his ‘Spuni’ vanishing spray to a number of international leagues and competitions since he first developed the product in the early 2000s.
Spuni owns patent rights for his product in Brazil and more than 40 other countries, but FIFA said the spray it uses does not infringe the Brazilian’s IP.
The inventor and his legal team have given media interviews criticising FIFA over its dealings with Spuni.
The New York Times reported in 2017 that FIFA had offered to buy Allemagne’s patent for $500,000 in the months leading up to the 2014 World Cup.
But this deal didn’t go through, and as the use of vanishing spray in international football became more commonplace, Allemagne accused FIFA of “stealing” his idea.
Spuni obtained a favourable ruling from a Rio de Janeiro judge in 2017, who acknowledged the company’s patent rights in 44 countries, and ordered FIFA to cease using the spray on penalty of a fine of $15,000 per match.
But FIFA challenged the ruling, and has now welcomed a decision from the State Court of Rio de Janeiro, which it says vindicates its position.
In a statement, FIFA said: “In its decision, the court concluded that Spuni did not present conclusive evidence of patent infringement and that the idea of creating a free-kick spray did not entitle Spuni to prevent other companies from creating such sprays with a different chemical composition, since alternative products would naturally emerge on the market as the use of free-kick sprays became more commonplace.”
FIFA’s chief legal and compliance offer Emilio Garcia Silvero said: “FIFA greatly welcomes this decision by the court, which rejects Spuni’s unfounded lawsuit and demonstrates the inaccuracy of the recent statements by Spuni that attempted to mislead the public in this matter.”
Once again, this decision shows that FIFA has always acted within the law and in good faith in relation to this tenuous legal dispute,” Garcia Silvero added.
WIPR has contacted legal representatives for Spuni for comment in response to FIFA’s statement.
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