The Tour de France and ambush marketing

Holmfirth - the Tour de France passes through my home town

The Tour de France is of particular interest to me this year because the route passes a few hundred yards from my front door. Crash barriers have already been erected along Chapel Hill in Huddersfield and the route is festooned with yellow, green, white and polka dot flags. As everyone in this county knows, the Tour is setting off from Leeds and two of the stages are taking place in Yorkshire with a third in the East of England. There has been an arts festival since the 27 March 2014 and an international business festival in Leeds this week.

Like all major sporting events the Tour is dependent on sponsorship but sponsorship is vulnerable to ambush marketing. To protect the sponsors of the London Olympics from ambush marketing new intellectual property rights were created, namely Olympic association right by the Olympic Symbol etc. (Protection) Act 1995 and London Olympic association right by the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006. HM government was obliged to enact this legislation by the host city contract which it signed with the International Olympic Committee. Such feather bedding for the Olympic sponsors was criticized by many at the time including me (see "Olympics Association Right and London Olympics Association Right" 31 July 2012 NIPC law).

There has been nothing like those association rights for the Tour with the result that there has been a blossoming of yellow bicycles, assorted coloured flags and tea rooms and pubs throughout the county have broken out in measles (or is it polka dots). No doubt this decoration has been with the permission of the tour organizers but could anything be done about it if it was not? La Société du Tour de France has registered a number of Community and UK trade marks for the words "Le Tour de France" and some of the Tour's symbols for a large number of classes but it does not seem to have registered the colours of any of the maillots or indeed the polka dots. There is the the law of passing off, of course, but I would not like to argue that yellow, green or red spots is associated with the Tour and none other. In any case, by the time an application for an injunction came before the courts the cyclists would be well on their way to Champs-Élysées.

So tant pis as our friends across the channel would say, but does it matter?  I would reply "ce n'est pas grave",

Holmfirth Folk Festival

In the first weekend of May my home town hosts a folk festival. Music and dance are everywhere. Every bar or cafe has at least one singer. Every few square metres of open space a troupe of morris or rapper dancers. Here's a photo that I took of some English maidens dancing lustily to beguiling Latin rhythms.

We all have our favourite artistes, of course, and mine are a band from Lancashire called Ottersgear. These musicians produce a sound like none other and have a captivating stage presence. To see what I mean just watch and listen to some of the clips on their YouTube channel, particularly "Faery Glen" which was shot at our Picturedrome cinema on the last day of last year's festival, and "Sunflowers in my Head".

Much of the band's appeal lies in the voice of its lead singer, Mikey Kenney which is both powerful and poignant. In the intimate setting of a cafe bar where they performed "Sunflowers" on Sunday afternoon this hard bitten patent counsel found herself reaching for her tissues more than once as she forced back welling emotions. But perhaps the haunting quality of their music comes from their gifted accordionist, Charley Weatherill, though it would be unfair to single her, the mandolin player, the bodhran or even Kenney himself for special praise.

Pressure of work meant that I had only a limited amount of time this year. I did however catch Ottersgear on Friday evening at the Picturedrome where they performed with Steph Stephenson, Gary Stewart and Ellen & the Escapades and again on Sunday afternoon when I visited several venues. Here is a photo of one of my other favourites playing "Uncle Joe's Mint Balls".

"What has all this to do with intellectual property?" You ask. Well performances are intellectual assets which are protected by rights in performances under Part II of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Also literary and musical copyrights subsist in the words and music of the songs. The names of bands can usually be registered as trade marks under the Trade Marks Act 1994. But really this is an excuse to blog about a delightful weekend in our lovely Pennine town. I'm sure my clients would agree that all work and no play would make Jane a very dull girl. Which I'm not really.