The Trademark Olympics!

Like any big sporting association, the international Olympic games own many marks. In fact, there are so many Olympic committees and associations it's almost impossible to do a search for Olympic trademarks. Do I search for something international or just in the US? And who really owns the concept? 

Truly, I had no idea when I started this, and my ignorance of the legal and organizational scope of the Olympics really only became clear as I tried to find official Olympics trademarks.

"But surely," I told myself, "someone must own that interconnected rings symbol or everyone would put all over everything."

Yeah, they do. And apparently it's everyone who has ever participated in an Olympic Games. I truly did not expect to be so overwhelmed by such a seemingly simple search premise. I think it is due to one culprit in particular, too.

Anyway, here are some Olympic symbols and their owners:  

The above-mentioned culprit! Canada's Canadian Olympic Committee went WAY overboard registering  their marks... in Canada. I did not find that they had registered so many in any other jurisdiction. Also, for all of the registrations that I pulled, they claimed every single class. Seriously! Nice classes 1-45 completely. Either CIPO was feeling lenient towards the Canadian Olympic Committee or they have pretty open ideas about classes of goods and services. 

ALL THE CLASSES (except it can only show 33; note the comma)

This particular mark is one of their committee's symbols. It was registered in 1975, and according to the WIPO Global Brand Database, is still live. 

The Canadian Olympic Association logo, since 1975

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee has many registrations in the USPTO database, but it doesn't have them like Canada. This one is for branding some random souvenirs. Still, it's likely just one of many similar logos that is used for multiple purposes and you've likely seen this past week.

Team USA!

I accidentally closed the window with this information about this registered mark, and given how overwhelmed I've felt about this search, thought I would never find it again. But allow me to introduce you to the image search function in the Global Brand Database sometime.

Both color and grayscale, just in case

It's for the British Olympic Association and covers a handful of expected and (probably also) souvenir-related classes. It doesn't seem to be the main symbology, though; that's a lion or lion head. 

The British were not my first guess when I saw this

The Qatar Olympic Committee is another that has worked hard to cover all potential infringement bases. They've registered this symbol in more countries than you might guess. I did not know the name of the IP office in Zimbabwe before this afternoon, but now I do. In this particular case, the image and the related record is from Tunisia, another IP office I was previously unfamiliar with.

I like how it's the ring colors but people

Finally, here is the recognizable international Olympic Games symbol, from the International Olympic Committee (Comité International Olympique) based in Switzerland. The specific registration is with the EPO.

International registration for international committees!

Enjoy the Olympics while they are still taking place, and we'll revisit this IP again in a few years.