Olympic Products Query

[pisquee]

Obviously, we can't design products that say "London 2012" on them. But, what if I had two or more products, which had these words on them separately, which are sold as individual items, rather than a set. Say I have a load of coasters, and they all have a word on them, some of them happen to have the word London on them, and some also have the number 2012 on them, so a customer could buy a set which when joined together said London 2012.

[gorgall2]

Would the profit be greater than the fines?

[pisquee]

My question is more whether there would be fines. Imagine you had an existing product range, be it coasters or fridge magnets, and you already had names of various UK cities, and years dating back to 1970 ... a customer could if they chose, buy a set which then effectively said "London 2012" although written across two separate products.

[pisquee]

... There are certainly plenty of tourist products in London, which just have "London" written on them, so this obviously isn't against the rules. And I'm sure you must be able to buy products with years printed on them.

[phoenixalpha]

There is a list from LOCOG of which words you can and cannot use - it includes words from different lists - for example List A contains the word Games, List B uses the word Summer - so you couldnt use Summer Games. I'm fairly sure you cant use London 2012 in any variation or variant thereof without LOCOG doing it's fruit if it catches you. Hell you cant even use the word SUMMER 2012.

Full LOCOG details are here : http://www.london2012.com/about-us/our- ... the-brand/

I would personally just keep the hell away from it all.

[pisquee]

I've read the LOCOG pages, and know that you can't print the words "London 2012" "Summer Games" etc together. My query is more what people's thoughts on them being printed separately onto different products.

[phoenixalpha]

They'd be fine as long as there was no possibility of "joining" them together. Like I was to provide 10 tshirts each with the letter L 2 O 0 N 1 D 2 O N for the purposes of ten people lining up to show LONDON 2012 or 5 seoerarate coloured rings that could join up to show an olympic logo. These things *may* be ok, but you dont need some busybody from LOCOG taking away all your stock or stopping you from trading or selling chips in a LOCOG promotional zone or god forbid actually wearing a pepsi tshirt or nike trainers

[purpledragon]

it would all come down to intent , is it an obvious attempt at selling items on the back of the olympic games? to establish this you would need to be able to afford better lawyers than those the olympic bods have. since you are trying to make a crust out of personalised products im guessing you arnt a millionaire and my advice would be steer well clear of anything olympic no matter how cryptic it may be

[phoenixalpha]

a mate of mine's shop had SUMMER 2012 in the window relating to his sale (not olympic in any way) . LOCOG sent him a letter asking for £20k in violation of locog guidelines and a cease and desist order. This in in Glasgow btw... and not near an Olympic venue not London.

[mrs maggot]

a very interesting programme on radio 4 the otherday, saying that the courts will throw most of it out, and that LOCOG are now behaving in a more responsible way the real issue is the use of the rings and the colours in the rings, the programme was on last week, i will do a search and see if i can find it