Covering Up Any Brand In Beijing That Hasn't Paid To Sponsor The Olympics

from the ip-insanity dept

Every time you think that the Olympics' bizarre obsession with extra-ordinary protections on intellectual property took a step beyond ridiculous, you were probably just underestimating the International Olympic Committee, who will just keep going further and further. You may recall the efforts put forth by the IOC to get special trademarks on certain words, like 2010 and Vancouver and 2012 and London, since that's where the next two Olympics will take place. While it seems ridiculous to be able to get trademarks on such things (and goes against the very purpose of trademark law), politicians seem to bow down to the Olympics. But that was just the start.

The Olympics has threatened any non-sponsor advertiser from even mentioning the Olympics, banned people in the stands from wearing clothing that has the logos of competitors to sponsors and even insisted that its security technology choices would be limited to sponsors, even if others had better technology.

The latest, however, may be the most ridiculous. All over Beijing, the brands of non-sponsors are being covered up by Olympic officials so that no one thinks that faucet maker American Standard got a "free ride." Seriously. They're putting tape over the brand name on faucets. And on light switches. And the headphones used by reporters and many other places where perfectly normal brands might occur. They've even covered up the name of a major hotel in Beijing, because it's not an Olympic sponsor.

In media centers, dormitories and arena bathrooms, pieces of tape cover logos of fire extinguishers, light switches, thermostats, bedroom night tables, soap dispensers and urinals. The Taiden Industrial translation headsets in a large conference room have had their logos covered, as have the American Standard faucets in the bathrooms nearby, and the ThyssenKrupp escalators down the hall. Even the sign atop the InterContinental Beijing Beichen hotel, attached to the Main Press Center, has been obscured by an Olympic cloth wrap. InterContinental Hotels Group isn't an Olympic sponsor.

Why? Well, the IOC claims that it's necessary:

The International Olympic Committee says that such "brand protection" is essential for the Games to raise the corporate money that keeps them going and growing. The Games get 40% of their revenue from sponsors, with the rest coming from broadcast rights, ticketing and licensing.

A few quick responses to that whopper of a statement:

• The purpose of trademark law is not to protect the ability of the Olympics to make a profit. It's to avoid people being confused into thinking one product is made by someone else.
• Even if it's important for the Olympics to make money off of sponsors, it's difficult to see why that would necessitate blocking everyone else's brands. No other event does this, and those events make out just fine.
• Couldn't some of the covered up brands make the exact same response back? American Standard sold its faucets at a certain price, knowing that it would get some brand recognition from having its brand on the faucets. By blocking that, aren't the Olympics denying American Standard's "essential brand protection" that it needs to keep making money?

Once again, the true spirit of the Olympic games seems to be in absolutely trashing the meaning and purpose of intellectual property laws.

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Beijing Officials: Olympic Food Will Be Safe Because We're Using Technology!

from the the-answer-to-all-our-prayers dept

There have been a number of food safety problems coming out of China lately, and it's no wonder that this has officials in Beijing more than a little on edge about the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It's amusing, though, to see Olympic officials explain that the food during the Olympics will be safe because of technology. It's as if they only need to say that they're using technology to keep people safe and everyone will automatically assume it's so. However, the details simply suggest that this is just for the logistics aspect. They'll be tracking where food goes, but that doesn't mean they'll be doing anything to make sure the food is really safe. At the same time, why should there be any difference in emphasis over the safety of the food used for the Olympics as opposed to the safety of food in general? If anything, this announcement sounds more like officials trying to calm any worries by invoking the magic word "technology," rather than taking real efforts to improve the safety of Chinese products.

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