Using “Olympic” or Olympic marks in your promotion requires written permission

It is the law reserving Olympic marks for the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee and requiring written permission before using them commercially. For a small business the lesson is concrete: it is not only about the rings. The law names words and initials common in sports advertising, and using them without permission has consequences.

Any natural or legal person, group of persons or association, and any commercial firm — every firm, company, business, corporation, factory or association that offers for sale, sells, distributes or manufactures articles or products bearing protected marks, or that advertises commercially or for promotional purposes alluding to Olympic activity — that wishes to use those marks.

• Prior written permission from the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee, which the law calls an indispensable requirement for using the protected marks for commercial or promotional purposes.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

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   Step 1: What is protected goes far beyond the rings

   The definition is broad: a “mark” is every expression, word, phrase, initials, flag, symbol, Olympic flame or fire, motto and emblem alluding to Olympic events. And the remedies article names concrete examples: the initials COPR, COI, COPUR and PUR, the words “Olympic” or “Olympiad,” and the phrase “Altius-Citius-Fortius.” Before printing a sign or booking an ad, check that list.

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   Step 2: The permission is prior and in writing

   A person or commercial firm wishing to use the protected marks for the manufacture, distribution, sale or offer for sale of articles or products, or through radio or television broadcasts or through magazines, newspapers, flyers or any other informational medium, must first obtain written permission from the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee sanctioning it, “as an indispensable requirement for its use.”

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   Step 3: You cannot register them as a trademark

   The law closes that route expressly: from its effective date, the Department of State will not permit any person or commercial firm to register these marks. If your plan was to register a trade name incorporating them, that door is closed by statute. For trademarks and trade names generally, we have a separate guide.

4. 4

   Step 4: The Committee must give equal opportunity

   A fact worth knowing if you are told no: the Committee shall issue permits and charge for the use and commercial exploitation of the marks in the various existing promotional media, adjusting to the norms the body sets for their use “and offering equal opportunity to every person or commercial firm to apply or bid for obtaining such permits.”

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   Step 5: The permit can be cancelled

   The Committee may cancel the permits it issues by written notice to the affected party, where the holder breaches the conditions imposed for using the marks through the various information or communication media, or otherwise makes improper use of them or breaches the law’s provisions. The Committee keeps a registry of permits, conditions and cancellations, and must break them out — along with amounts collected — in the annual economic report it submits to the Department of the Treasury and to both chambers’ Treasury and Sports Committees.

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   Step 6: Broadcast rights, and their limit

   Radio, television and internet rights from the summer and winter Olympic Games, the Pan American Games, the Central American and Caribbean Games, and from contests, games and world tournaments of a particular Olympic sport, shall be for the exclusive use of the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee, the only entity with the right and legal capacity to sell or negotiate them and to broadcast or transmit them in Puerto Rican territory. There is a consumer-side limit: entities contracting with the Committee under that article may not obstruct or require the obstruction of satellite, Cable TV or other transmissions that they are not themselves simultaneously providing, unadulterated, to consumers in Puerto Rico.

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   Step 7: What happens if you use without permission

   You will be subject to a prohibitory judicial action and a damages claim brought by the Olympic body, to bar use of the marks in your commercial promotion or product display, to compel compliance with the imposed conditions and to seek any other remedy available at law. In addition, every violation constitutes a misdemeanor, and the law warns that each violation constitutes an independent and separate violation.

The permit is requested from the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee, which issues it, sets its conditions and charges for use. The Department of State is the one that will not permit registration of these marks. If your aim is registering a trademark or trade name that does not incorporate Olympic marks, that is our trademark and trade name registration guide.

• Believing only the rings are protected: the definition covers expressions, words, phrases, initials, flags, symbols, mottos and emblems.
• Using the words “Olympic” or “Olympiad” in advertising without prior written permission.
• Trying to register an Olympic mark at the Department of State: the law prevents it.
• Assuming a permit is permanent: the Committee may cancel it by written notice.
• Thinking a whole campaign is a single violation: each violation is independent and separate.
• Rebroadcasting an Olympic activity without considering that the rights are the Committee’s exclusively.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Estado de Puerto Rico

  Departamento de Estado

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov

• Department of State

  Departamento de Estado

  estado.pr.gov