As anticipation builds up leading to the opening day of the 2014 World Cup of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the global football body has released a manual focusing on the intellectual property-related aspects of one of the biggest sporting events in the world. Sensing the enterprising ingenuity of several common folk and businesses, FIFA has published the manual in the hopes of curbing copyright violations regarding its Official Marks, LegalWeek.com said.
The manual read, "The Official Marks are protected in Brazil and territories around the world by trade mark registration and/or copyright laws and/or other laws of intellectual property such as unfair competition or passing off. Such laws collectively protect FIFA against the unauthorized use of both identical reproductions of the Official Marks and also confusingly similar variations and modifications."
FIFA first delve into the issues of the misuse of its classic word marks that identifies this year's event, such as "FIFA", "2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil", "2014 FIFA World Cup", "FIFA World Cup", "Football World Cup", "Soccer World Cup" and "Mundial de Futebol Brasil 2014". Moreover, FIFA insisted its exclusivity to the 2014 World Cup slogan, which is "All in One Rhythm."
The sports organization also has protections in place of its event mascot, which is an armadillo avatar named Fuleco, which, LegalWeek.com explained is an amalgamation of Brazilian words futebol (football) and ecologia (ecology).
The online news blog observed that the latest FIFA manual also focuses on the uses of the organization's intellectual properties on the Internet. According to the manual, FIFA's lawyers will take action on anyone who uses its official logos, symbols and other graphic trade marks on any social media platform. Moreover, FIFA also provides the limits of an entity who uses the organization's word marks into URLs.
While FIFA tries to stamp out its right to anything that could prove to be more litigation work for its attorneys, one could not fault the organization to be very protective of its intellectual property. According to an AsiaOne report, Sports market intelligence company Sportcal that this year's World Cup would rake in commercial revenue of $4.28 billion.
