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22 December 2017Trademarks

German regulator forces changes to Olympics sponsorship rule

Germany's national competition regulator (the Bundeskartellamt) has conducted “antitrust proceedings” against the International Olympic Committee (IOC), prompting changes over rule 40 of the Olympic Charter.

Rule 40 is aimed at protecting the rights of official Olympic sponsors, so that nine days before, during, and three days after the Olympics (“the frozen period”), no other brands are permitted to use words like ‘Olympic’, ‘Gold’, or ‘Games’.

The brands are also not permitted to publicly associate themselves with Olympic athletes, and athletes can’t credit or mention their sponsors if they aren’t official Olympic sponsors.

According to the Bundeskartellamt, the current application of rule 40 is is restrictive of competition and the market dominance of the IOC has been abused.

The Bundeskartellamt initiated the proceedings after the Federal Association of the German Sporting Goods Industry filed a complaint against the IOC and the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB).

Andreas Mundt, president of the Bundeskartellamt, said: “The advertising restrictions for athletes and companies may constitute an abuse of the dominant position of DOSB and IOC. It has to be taken into account that the athletes, as the service providers of the Olympic Games, do not directly benefit from the very high advertising revenues of official Olympic sponsors.”

However, the Bundeskartellamt said that because of its antitrust concerns, the IOC and DOSB have proposed changes.

“DOSB and IOC have agreed to relax by means of commitments the previous restrictions on advertising geared exclusively to Germany,” said the Bundeskartellamt.

The regulator said that the Olympic terms and Olympic terms are now much narrower than the previous ones.

It added that generic advertising, as well as greetings or congratulatory messages from the sponsors to athletes, are also permitted during the "frozen period" under certain conditions.

And athletes may now share or retweet content from the IOC, DOSB and Team Germany accounts, and link it to the sponsor with greetings or acknowledgments.

The commitments will now be submitted to various companies, associations and athletes for comment.

The modified DOSB guide can be used provisionally with a view to the approaching Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

During the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, US-based JUX Law Firm filed a complaint on behalf of a Minnesota-based carpet cleaning business over the US Olympic Committee's ‘bullying’ tactics surrounding Olympic-themed hashtags.

The US Olympic Committee had reportedly resorted to “legal bullying” tactics to try and stop non-official sponsors of the Games from using Olympic-related Twitter hashtags.

In 2020, the Olympic Games will take place in Tokyo, Japan.

WIPR recently spoke to the country’s organisational committee—the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee—about IP mishaps, police and customs enforcement, and ambush marketing. Click here to read more.

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