While we're watching Luis Juarez take a bite out of Italy in the World Cup, who's watching out for FIFA's rules? That'd be Arent Fox trademark group head Ricardo Fischer.
A billion people worldwide watched the last World Cup finale, so the advertising stakes are high. Ricardo advises clients on FIFA's guidelines, especially on issues around advertising without formal sponsorship agreements. It can be a fine line for companies that don't have the rights to use the registered trademarks of the involved cities, sponsors, or federations. The answer varies by country (FIFA doesn't hold the same amount of rights in each country) and industry (if a direct competitor is a FIFA sponsor, for instance, what you can do is much more restricted). Sports themes are generally fine, but your risk level rises if you try to associate yourself somehow with FIFA or the World Cup. Bottom line: if you're not a sponsor, don't try to present yourself as one.
Ricardo's been doing this for more than a decade—along with advising on similar issues with the Olympics. Though as a big soccer aficionado, he hardly considers it work. During "March Madness on steroids," as he likes to call it, FIFA asks the host for a package that includes widely protecting FIFA's trademarks (like "World Cup" and "Rio 2014"). It also asks for an exclusion zone: approximately two kilometers around the venues where nobody but official sponsors can operate, and a ban on "ambush marketing" for non-sponsors. Ricardo's from Venezuela (which didn't make it into the Cup), so he's rooting for the US or countries where he has friends and family, like Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.
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