Article | Intellectual Property Rights Surrounding Women’s World Cup

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 takes place between July 20^th and August 20^th, celebrating the ninth edition of the world-famous championship. This is the largest edition so far, with 32 teams scheduled to play 64 games over a month. The 2023’s edition of the Tournament is expected to break stadium attendance and television viewership records.

For FIFA, staging a World Cup tournament goes beyond developing the infrastructure of stadiums, transportation, and other event logistics. The organization committee also must have a plan for its intellectual property, audiovisual, marketing, licensing, ticketing, and other commercial rights. These are essential for the success of the event. For that matter, the association issued in July the “FIFA Intellectual Property Guidelines”, providing information and guidance to interested parties on FIFA’s intellectual property and other commercial rights regarding the FIFA Women´s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™, the Tournament, and FIFA itself.

With a view to promoting identifiers related to the Tournament, FIFA has developed a variety of IP assets, including logos, symbols, titles, etc. The whole FIFA’s Official Intellectual Property is protected around the world by trademark, copyright, unfair competition, and other forms of IP rights.

FIFA holds all the rights regarding the Tournament, which comprise intellectual property, media, marketing, licensing, ticketing, and other commercial rights. The Guideline highlights that the use of Official Intellectual Property for commercial purposes is restricted to sponsors, media rights licensees, and other licensees, whose financial support is crucial to ensure that FIFA can hold the Tournament and further invest in the sport’s development. Without exclusive access to the Official Intellectual Property assets, the acquired rights would be weakened, and Holders could lose interest. Therefore, FIFA requests that non-affiliated entities/individuals do not practice unduly commercial association with the Tournament.

The Guideline’s final sections are dedicated to making entities and individuals aware of how to use FIFA’s Official Intellectual Property without unfairly associating with the Tournament. For this purpose, a non-exhaustive list of scenarios illustrating forms of authorized and unauthorized uses is presented. The examples comprise activities regarding media, business advertisements, competitions/games/lotteries, ticket promotions, match schedules, businesses, public view, and on-site at the tournament.

The aforementioned gives a small glimpse into FIFA’s policy regarding its Intellectual Property. In fact, the association has registered trademarks for USA 2026® and CANADA 2026®, which illustrates how early IP issues need to be planned of events.

For further information, access the full Guideline available on FIFA’s Official website: https://www.fifadigitalarchive.com/welcome_old/markrequest/Common/documents/FIFA_Womens_World_Cup_Australia_and_New_Zealand_2023TM_IP_Guidelines_Version_3_0_English.pdf

Author: Georgia Chicoski, Patent Specialist

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