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It’s a funny old game – World Cup & IP
pixabay/gellinger
Once every 4 years the FIFA Football World Cup (or soccer for our American readers) comes around and incites an unnatural sense of optimism in England supporters around the world that this could be our year. While this is always an event that somewhat brings the people of the country together, some may say the repetitive upsurge of optimism before each World Cup is misplaced. On the eve of the World Cup which marks the 13th tournament and 52 years since the first (and only) World Cup victory of the three lions, it is worth noting that England’s national team have won just 6 matches in the knockout stages of any major international tournament since the 1966 World Cup Victory.
Optimism or pessimism aside, there is always the possibility of a World Cup upset, football is a simple game where anything can happen, as Sepp Herberger (Coach of the 1954 World Cup winning West Germany team) famously once said; “The ball is round, and the game lasts 90 minutes”. (more…)
Eleven of Hearts – Bale’s Trade Mark
Following in the footsteps of other world-class footballers wishing to take advantage of the growing commercialisation of football (or “soccer” for our American friends), Gareth Bale has applied to register his famous heart-shaped goal celebration as a trade mark at the UK Intellectual Property Office. Details of Bale’s application for the word mark ELEVEN OF HEARTS can be found here, while the application for the logo can be found here.
With either a big-money transfer to the King of Spain’s Real Madrid or a large contract-extension in the pipeline, the Tottenham Hotspurs’ Number 11 could be forgiven for rolling over on his bed of £50 notes and going back to sleep. However, given that the average footballer’s career spans around fifteen years, IPcopy would not be surprised to see more and more footballers bringing out their own branded football boots (like Ronaldo’s R9 or Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 boots, both released in partnership with Nike) or tiny briefs (à la David Beckham).
As for choosing which trade mark to protect, they would have to go some way to beat the imagination of NBA player Anthony Davis, who spent part of his first pay-check obtaining trade mark protection (“FEAR THE BROW!”) for his prominent uni-brow – check out the brow in his headshot here!
Nick Bowie 18 June 2013
IPcopy 
