The International Olympic Committee and its U.S. counterpart say in a complaint filed in Houston federal court that a cybersquatter “speculatively register[ed] and stockpil[ed] hundreds of domain names consisting of Olympic city-year names…”
Sideman and Bancroft attorney Kelly McCarthy believes this is a case to watch because it might result in a significant extension of the Olympic committees’ trademark rights. The Olympic committees “could claim rights not only to those words and city-date combinations already designated for the Olympic Games but also to any city-date combination which had the chance of ever becoming a site for the games,” McCarthy said.
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