Olympic Peninsula businesses have been getting letters from USOC lawyers for years.

“The whole thing is so incredibly unfair and unjust, and I’m so sorry to hear Olympic Cellars is taking this,” said Ned Schumann, owner of the Internet provider OlympusNet in Port Townsend. “It’s such a joke that they [the USOC] have this power.”

…Olympic Mountain Rescue, a volunteer search-and-rescue nonprofit in Kitsap County, was contacted in the 1970s by U.S. Olympic people who ultimately gave it authorization to use the word, said coordinator Roger Beckett….”

I hereby declare: 2010 !!!

WINTER !!!

WITH GLOWING HEARTS !!!

Sue me mutherfuckers.

Still… fuck you IOC. Go get real jobs.

“1200″

SUCK IT, VANOC!

http://books.google.com/books?id=Fvrzk5uZO_QC

This makes me so angry. So very very angry.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080925.wanthem25/BNStory/National/home

You can see it at the CIPO.

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/cipo/trademarks/search/viewTrademark.do;jsessionid=0000xFrplxEdBl6vIv4ykpovoP6:1247nfca5?language=eng&fileNumber=1410532&extension=0&startingDocumentIndexOnPage=1

It is a broad attempt, but will very likely be scaled back given the 100 years of history of the phrase. I’m more of a patent guy, but I’m told that opposing trademarks for well known phrases is easy and often successful; this is basically a bad trademark selection by VANOC as it’s not likely to result in an enforceable property.

Hear, hear. Harness our words, harness our thoughts. No thank you.

—
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
(Or something like that)

The USOC, in a truly magnanimous display of largesse, have agreed to allow their prime persecutee (Olympic Cellars Winery of Port Angeles) to retain their name for marketing purposes only on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. In other words, they can’t market their products (which are quite good) outside the immediate area without sacrificing the identity which they have worked several years to establish.

And who do we have to thank for this? None other than Alaska Senator Ted (Tubes) Stevens, who sponsored the legislation that gave the USOC the “right” to monopolize the word “Olympic.”

What bothers me most is that they get away with copyrighting history. You know mount olympus and the greek mythology are around for almost 3.000 years, in greece you just can’t copyright the words they pretend they own – the friggin greek national air line is called olympic airlines LOL

Of course it doen’t help that the committee has some dubbious characters amongst it’s members. Greece’s very own ex-king is among them. Though he is persona non grata in Greece (because he refuses to acknowledge that Greece is a democracy and insists that he wants his greek passport to state that he is a monarch and he must be refered only by his first name Konstantinos without a surname) he still manages to enter the country as a member of the IOC.

F***k em.

I am disgusted that the IOC can get away with what they have done – when the Olympics were in Calgary in ’88 I don’t recall there being laws passed about certain words.

How ridiculous. I think this may be another Olympics that I don’t bother watching.

Not seeing what the hubbub is all about.

This is a trademark issue, not one of copyright. It doesn’t make the situation any less stupid, but that is a very important distinction.

USOC attacks on businesses and individuals here are much more extensive than just the one company. They appear to be particularly aggravated by the use on web sites (completely in keeping with Ted “tube” Steven’s understanding of it). Perhaps it’s because some can actually be viewed outside the Olympic Peninsula (*gasp*).