IOC Forces School To Remove Rings From Crest For Some Reason

from the champions-of-bullying dept

Have you thought about the Olympics lately? No? Then I guess you didn't drive past any of the tiny little schools in this itty bitty school district in the Poconos in Pennsylvania that serves a population of almost twenty-five thousand whole people, because, if you had, the International Olympic Committee is quite certain you would have been all, "Oh, look, that must be a school run by the Olympics for some reason." Otherwise, the IOC's pressuring the district to re-draw this district crest would make no sense.



You can probably spot the source of the problem immediately. It's those damned rings at the top-left, of course, and the IOC ain't happy that some stupid little learning institution could think that those rings could be incorporated in a logo. After all, the Olympics has nothing to do with learning, with a cooperative spirit, or with domestic institutions. Which is exactly what has me questioning why there is any trademark standing to begin with. After all, the two entities aren't competing in any kind of marketplace and the IOC, notoriously trademark-protect-y, has allowed the Wallenpaupack's district crest to exist since the 1970's.



Now, however, the IOC has convinced the school district that it must come up with a new crest. Quite unfortunately, the IOC even appears to have district officials convinced that the trademark claim is all super-legitimate.

“They obviously have a legitimate concern. It’s a trademarked item. We do have to come up with a plan of phasing it out,” said Superintendent Michael Silsby. Phasing out the rings because Silsby said an attorney for the U.S. Olympic Committee called last week, saying the school could no longer use the rings to represent athletics.

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No, thata legitimate concern, even if narrowly applied to athletic teams, because there's no commerce or competition here. This was simply the IOC, through the domestic USOC, bullying a school because it felt like it. Or maybe the USOC lawyers found some downtime and decided to fill it up smacking around schools. Either way, nothing about this is born out of a legitimate concern.The district is reportedly going to have students create the new crest, which is all well and good, but that doesn't remove the bile from my mouth over the USOC's actions. You folks must be so proud...

Filed Under: crest, ioc, olympics, poconos, schools, trademark, usoc