THE UNTAPPED POTENTIAL OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN SPORTS: Trade Secrets and Patents Design Rights

Almost no sport has remained largely unchanged since its inception, all have seen innovation and expansion. What has prompted this growth?

Intellectual property rights, for the most part, have provided the necessary incentives to continue inspiring advancement in sports. Different types of intellectual property rights promote the growth of the sports industry in various ways. This article examines how five major categories of intellectual property rights (patents, trademarks, design rights, copyrights, and trade secrets) are used to protect assets, create value, and promote growth in the sports industry. Sports have become an integral part of many people's lives. They have been a field of immense importance and significance from ancient times to the age of science and commercialization because they are so ingrained in our daily lives and have become a vital component of human life. Its nature has shifted from being regarded as a recreational activity to one that benefits national and international economies while also generating revenue for individuals.Sports are now viewed as a multi billion dollars global industry that supports millions of jobs, invests in infrastructure, and entertains millions more. The global sports industry, which is a massive industry, has helped to bridge different cultures and economies over the last century. Following a protracted period of conflict, the recent Olympic example of North and South Korea competing as one team greatly aided in bridging their differences. Professional sports teams are now more financially viable as a result of marketing, promotion, franchising, merchandising, and brand building. They have attempted to only partner with multinational corporations in order to expand their growth and influence.

Intellectual Property Rights are used as marketing tools towards the branding of sponsorship sporting, games, teams, broadcasting and media deals, celebrity status, etc. Various football clubs around the world such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Liverpool are a perfect example of intellectual property brand capitalization. Intellectual Property encourages the growth of the sports industry and enables sporting organizations to finance sporting events and assists in the development of the sports.

Patent:

Patent system has proved to be a powerful incentive to innovate with a no less important societal benefit of enhancing the common pool of knowledge and stimulating others to build on and improve the current state of the art setting a virtuous cycle in motion. Sports are a sector that directly uses and benefits from the patent system. Sporting equipment is continuously evolving. New technologies help athletes jump higher, swim faster, cycle longer , and hit a ball harder and farther. Safety also improves with technologies that lessen impact and stress on athletes' bodies. There are literally tens of thousands of utility patents relating to sports. A search of the Google patents public datasets reveals hundreds of thousands of utility patents related to sports and making reference to such terms as "athletic" or "athletes".

Trade Marks:

Branding plays an essential role in creating value, interest, and vitality in sports. It drives consumer loyalty and confidence in the quality and features of sporting goods. It also generates allegiance to sports teams and sportswear styles. The sports sector presents a unique opportunity to create a "domino effect" in trade mark value creation.

Consider an individual athlete who becomes a dominant player in a team sport and develops his or her own individual brand. The dominance of this athlete drives the growth and popularity of the athlete's team as well as the entire professional league in which he or she plays.

Designs:

An equally important IP right in the sports sector is aesthetics protected by design-specific IP rights. Industrial designs are key to making a product attractive and desirable. Companies spend vast amounts of resources on understanding consumers tastes and developing stylish and attractive product designs to capture valuable market segments. These designs often become their most valuable assets.

Copyrights:

Copyright plays a critical role in maintaining the vitality of sports, keeping fans interested and inspired and enhancing value. The promotion and marketing of championships and sporting events, the artistic designs of the logos of sports teams and sports competitions, the literature contained in game day programmes sold to fans and supporters, the merchandise,and the software of computer and online games are all copyrightable subject-matter. Revenues from broadcasting and media rights are often the main source of funds for sports organisations to build stadiums, host sporting events, and carry out community outreach to maintain high levels of interest.

Major sporting events can now be streamed or broadcast anywhere in the world, giving millions of fans the opportunity to participate in the excitement of an event.

Trade Secrets:

Sports also generate an important volume of trade secrets that play a key role in competitive advantage and value creation. Teams gather proprietary information in the form of statistical analysis, scouting reports, dietary regimens, physiological metrics , and psychological assessment techniques-all to gain potential competitive advantage over their rivals.

Sports gear often features secret new compounds and materials to allow athletes to perform better. Companies invest heavily in elaborate focus groups to find the right mix of features and designs to make their products more attractive and marketable.

Juxtaposition of Trade Secrets and Patents/Design Rights:

Patents and design rights are the publicly known aspects of the invention, while trade secrets encompass the undisclosed knowledge behind it. In exchange for disclosure the inventor obtains a patent that prevents others from copying the invention for a period of time. Conversely, there is no need to register trade secrets, and they can last indefinitely as long as the information is kept confidential. But protection is much more limited; others are only prevented from breaching the security measures in place. Hence the two sides of the innovation coin: elements of an invention subject to reverse engineering are candidates for patent protection, while trade secrets can protect what is not apparent from examining the product.

Conclusion:

Often patents and other registrable forms of IP rights are the tip of the iceberg. The rest is knowledge acquired over time during many iterations of the development process. Some inventions, like the secret syrup formula for Coca-Cola for instance, are difficult if not impossible to determine how to copy and as such can be kept entirely secret indefinitely, as long as measures are in place to ensure their security. Trade secrets can take many forms in the world of sports, from proprietary information and processes used by individual teams and leagues to techniques and business strategies used by sporting goods and product manufacturers. The development process of new products and designs takes years of prototyping and testing that must be kept secret to prevent tipping off the competition.

Written by

Akshay Singh Rawat

LinkedIn 

Divyanshi Srivastva

LinkedIn