The Spanish Supreme Court rules on cases targeting football matches, LaLiga, and IP rights

The Spanish Supreme Court has recently ruled on two lawsuits that concern the broadcasting of sports events and the relation to intellectual property rights.

In the first case, the Spanish Football Federation LaLiga sued two media Atresmedia S.A. and Mediaset S.A. for using images and video clips from football matches without permission in light of the fact that the rights for broadcasting of these matches were granted to another company.

According to the Supreme Court, every media has the right to record images and broadcast short news reports including football matches and this is not against the exclusive broadcasting rights for the same events because it is of public interest.

In the second case, The Supreme Court has ruled that broadcasting football matches in bars or restaurants without paying the corresponding fee to LaLiga is not an intellectual property crime. The reason is that football matches do not fit into the definition of copyrightable work, that is to say, they are not literary, artistic, or scientific works. The Court did not consider matches as a performance of creative works. Because of this, every possible infringement of football match broadcasting should be regarded as a market and consumer crime under Spanish legislation.

Source: EUIPO.

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“El Clasico” between Barcelona and Real Madrid can be a trademark in Japan

La Liga, the Spanish Football Federation, won a trademark dispute in Japan regarding its attempt to register the following trademark for Class 41 – sporting activities, production of sports events, sports information services, and other services:

The Japan Patent Office refused to register this sign based on absolute grounds – a lack of distinctive character.

As it is well-know, “El Clasico” is one of the most famous football matches in the world, between FC Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Its history dates back to 1930s and through the years this match has become recognizable among football fens all around the world.

Based on this, the Patent Office considered that consumers will connect the sign with this particular match and from that point of view they can mistake its nature when used on service unrelated to the football match between these two teams.

In the appeal, however, the Board of Appeal overturned this decision, stating that the sign is distinctive enough and capable to be a trademark. According to the Board the consumers in Japan would not relate the sign directly with this match for the relevant services, at least because it is written in Spanish.

What’s more the Board didn’t find any facts that “El Clasico” was commonly used to represent a specific nature or quality in connection with the services for which the mark was applied for.

Source: Masaki MIKAMI, Marks IP Law Firm.

La Liga was fined with 250 000 Euro for breaching GDPR

The organizer of the Spanish top football division La Liga was fined with $250 000 because of breach of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules.

The reason for that sanction was the La Liga practice potentially to use its mobile app to spy whether bars and restaurants show football matches without paying license fees.  According to the information, this could be done through phones microphones.

The Spanish Data Protection Agency considered this as breaching of the GDPR.

According to La Liga, this decision was wrong and unfair because the Agency failed to understand the mobile app technology and how it works.

Source: TBO.