Intellectual Property Rights in Sport

 You are on your way to the stadium to attend match or just on your couch waiting for the match to start, you see broadcaster names, club branding, players posing with official club merchandising, sponsors around the stadium, these are few examples of Intellectual Properties are used in sport. Intellectual Property Rights system supports sports all over the world by providing a fair return for creators and inventors in the industry of sport. Let us see what key elements are involved in IPR.

Sport is a key contributor to global economy. The industry apart from the actual sport itself has many layers of economic activities, there is merchandising, branding, licensing, broadcasting, sportswear etc. To be competitive in professional sport one needs innovation and creativity, same goes in case of all the other sporting activities. The purpose of having intellectual property rights therefore, is to encourage creativity and innovation by making sure inventors and creators are able to protect their goodwill and get a fair reward for their work. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) provides a safeguard for the efforts of everyone involved in the industry, from providing opportunities for athletes to perform better to fans watching sport on TV. IPR in sport protects different types of intellectual property, such as inventions (patents), brands (trademarks), designs (industrial design rights or design patents), and creative works, such as sports programs and other sports-related creative outputs, and sports broadcasts (copyright and related rights).

Inventions and patents

Technology plays a huge role in professional sport. Innovation in technology of sporting goods and equipment allows athletes to reach new heights in performance. New technologies improve the sport through innovation in field equipment but, innovation also in recovery, rehabilitation, and injury prevention.            

Smart sporting equipment with sensors and sophisticated information and communication technology, now a days can be seen everywhere in sport. For eg, It is used in training, to track and evaluate the performance of an athlete. Later this information can be used to identify areas for improvement and for implementing suitable training methods. But not all innovations are designed just for benefiting the athletes, many of these innovations reach the market and will be available for everyone to make use of. Inventions and patents can be observed in every small detail in sport such as strong, durable, light weight materials used in sportswear; sporting equipment like protective gears, training and recovery tools and also in broadcasting to ensure the best experience for the fans. Along with new technologies in sporting goods, designs also have the value in sport. The designs and materials of sporting goods are ever changing and involving. A good design and comfortable material appeal to consumers making it more attractive and marketable. By obtaining rights over the new technologies, designs, materials through patents for each and every invention, allows the companies to protect their investment made in research and also make revenue.

Trademark and Branding

Branding enables a company to build up their reputation and stand out in the market among competitors. Using trademarks, allows companies to distinguish its identity and its goods or service from its competitors. Trademark rights include rights over different features of a brand such as logo, captions, taglines, slogans, etc. These features can also be collectively referred to as trademark and create commercial value, as they create brand association in the market. In the world of sports, strategic use of these trademarks means more commercial opportunities to generate income.

However, trademarks in sports are not only limited to above mentioned features of a company. Trademarks in sports can also hold rights for sports teams, leagues, events and even include personal trademarks of athletes. Sponsorships in these sports events, leagues and teams are also protected by trademark rights and are extremely lucrative. Companies from various sectors recognise the global appeal of sports and its capability of spreading awareness of the brand. Companies spend millions in sponsorships in sport and endorsements of athletes to turn these opportunities into a significant gain in the market. 

Personal trademarks or personality rights are a way to use the popularity of an athlete to link them with the brand and its goods. Popularity of the athletes can be converted to monetary gains by associating them as brand ambassadors and including them in brand advertisements. Personality rights control the use of one’s name, image, likeliness, or other aspects of personal identity to create brand association and ultimately monetary gains. Personality rights can be included in an athlete’s contract by teams or companies can create their own endorsement contracts with individual athletes.

Copyright and broadcasting

Broadcasting is one of the major sources of income for sports organisations as, sport depends on broadcasters to televise its events all over the world. Copyright and broadcasting protect the right to transmit this footage and the relationship between the sport and the media. Therefore, to broadcast the sport, broadcasters must spend huge sums of money for exclusivity of the content. Sporting organisations can spend this revenue to develop its performance on and off the pitch. Broadcasters also from selling its content to other media, can invest in new technology to gain advantage over other broadcasters.

Broadcasters, because of the evolution of digital media and reach to consumers, are taking this opportunity to expand its services to various platforms. New technology and emergence of new platforms have given opportunity to new innovative media players in the industry. There is also significant rise in the competition for the rights to distribute the content which is always good for sport. 

To conclude, the sports industry comprises of stakeholders such as sponsors, broadcasters, and players, all of which contribute in IPR sector. Intellectual property rights therefore, are vital for the sporting industry, they protect the work of sporting organisations and help to secure economic value of their work, encourage creativity, enable organisations to be self-financed, support high profile sporting events and most importantly stimulates growth of the industry. 

picture credits - bt.com, sneaker-brand.ru, wipo.int