The IPKat's attention has been drawn to Community Trade Mark E3307444. The mark in question consists of the number "2014", which no-one would ever imagine to be the appellation by which next year might just be known. Applied for in 2003 and registered in 2005, this mark is owned by none other than the Comité International Olympique of Château de Vidy, Lausanne.

The IPKat doesn't feel he can safely use 2014 in the course of trade, so he has decided to call it "2013+1". Merpel isn't sure that this will work. The first three digits of 2014 also begin "2013" and, as is well known in decisions of the General Court and the Boards of Appeal of OHIM, consumers are likely to pay more attention to the beginning of a mark than to its end unless there's a good reason why they won't …

je•ah (Adjective)

1. Everything or almost everything
2. Happy
3. (To have a) good swim
4. Good
5. Good

[Possibly quite definitely derived from exclamation ("Chea!") popularized by recording artist Jay Wayne Jenkins ("Young Jeezy").] 

Linsanity. Fear the Brow. Clown question, bro. Fierce five. Jeah. All coming soon to an article of clothing hopefully nowhere near you.

Here's the trademark application in all its four-letter glory.

No one really understands the state of mind behind those sending the takedown. This video is actually bringing in new viewers and interest in an event that doesn't get as much attention as events like Gymnastics, Soccer (Football for those outside the US) and Dressage. But, since it isn't "official" commentary it simply can't be allowed. Or it could just be that the IOC has no sense of humor and felt humiliated and/or offended that someone would have anything but the nicest flattery to say about one of its events. 

Either way, the fact remains that such remixing and satire is a very powerful tool in promoting the original product. Francis's video had received 500,000 views prior to being taken down. That is a lot of people who may have not known about the Radial event. If the IOC really wanted to spread the message of the Olympics and bring in new viewers, this is the type of video that would accomplish that goal. Sadly, I don't see it changing its policies anytime soon.

USA Gymnastics is preparing a trademark filing for the term “Fierce Five,” which was attached to the gold medal-winning women’s gymnastics team at the London Olympics, spokeswoman Luan Peszek said in an e-mail.

Peszek has said the team, including Gabby Douglas, the first black gymnast to win the all-around, preferred Fierce Five to Fab Five.

A California man, Paolo Mazza, filed for a “Fierce Five” trademark on Aug. 8, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website. No attorney was listed on the filing, which provided only a post-office box in Millbrae, California, as an address. There is no telephone listing available.*

Though NBC drew criticism for not airing more of the games live, showcasing taped events in prime time "undeniably" helped ratings, NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus said. He said he wondered if NBC should have tape-delayed more events, such as the U.S. men's gold-medal basketball game and the men's tennis finals between Andy Murray and Roger Federer, which were live.

"It's undeniable we hurt our ratings by doing that," Mr. Lazarus said in a phone interview. "We have to balance what we're trying to do for viewers across the country and our business model."

At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the Australian organizing committee distributed 45,000 free condoms in the village. Eight years later in Beijing, 70,000 condoms—labeled with the phrase ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’—were exhausted and 20,000 more were ordered. This year in London, the Olympic organizing committee is providing 150,000, using special dispensers which contain a message promoting sexual health. Averaged among 10,490 athletes, that’s enough condoms for every athlete to have sex 15 times over the Olympics’ three weeks

"Your smartphone is your enemy during these next two weeks. If you carry it around, you will be tempted to check the Internet, and you risk receiving spoiler-laden text messages from your gymnastics-loving friends. Switch to an older phone for the duration of the Olympics, preferably one that is decades old, is shaped like a brick and has a wan green display that can handle neither text messages nor the Internet."

"You can probably divide your Facebook friends into "people who are likely to follow the Olympics" and "people who are not." Hide all status updates from the Olympics-following friends. This should leave you with a Facebook feed composed entirely of elderly relatives, local merchants and new mothers posting photographs of their children. Abandon Twitter entirely, or, at the very least, unfollow everyone except Jose Canseco."

"Practice walking with your fingers in your ears while shouting "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!"

"You know where nobody's talking about the Olympics? In the forest. Take these next two weeks as an opportunity to go back to nature. Pitch a tent in the woods, and commune with the stars and the seedlings. Bring a battery-powered television that gets only three channels, and fire it up every night around 7. You'll be able to watch the key moments of the Games in peace and quiet. And, despite what you've heard, it is quite unlikely that you'll be eaten by a bear."

It seems someone at LOCOG has taken exception to our idea (or the publicity it is getting) and instead of reaching out to us or addressing the lack of a notification system, they have simply blocked our access to their server. This means we are unable to check or post any new ticket alerts.

"The image url reference[d] the "opening ceremony" of something. But the tooltip for the image, which any seasoned Google user knows will tell you what's up with the logo that day, simply reads, "Hooray for sports!"

• The oldest athlete at the 2012 Olympics is Hiroshi Hoketsu at age 71. He competes as an equestrian rider, but isn't the oldest Olympian ever. Oscar Swahn from Sweden won a medal in shooting at the 1920 games at the age of 72. [url]
• The shuttlecocks in Badminton can reach speeds of over 300 miles per hour. Strangely, the best shuttlecocks are made from goose feathers -- plucked only from the left wing of the bird, for no particular good reason. [url]
• Guor Marial competes in the Olympics ... as an independent (representing no country). Wouldn't it be interesting if all the athletes were given the option to compete without representing a nation? Marial's unique status comes from being a South Sudan native, but not wanting to represent the nation that killed his family. [url]

The Trust and Safety team does not actively monitor users’ content. In all cases, whether the user is the head of a major corporation, a celebrity, or a regular user, we require a report to be filed at our abusive users webform. Not only do we need a report, but we need a report from the person whose private information has been posted, or someone who is able to legally act on their behalf. We do not proactively report or remove private information on behalf of other users, no matter who they are.

That said, we want to apologize for the part of this story that we did mess up. The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.

• Various economic figures can be used to try to predict how many medals each country will earn in 2012. The USA is expected to get somewhere between 99 and 113 medals, and China is predicted to come in second place with 67-98 medals. [url]
• The London Eye will be lit up like a mood ring during the Olympics, based on Tweets and a bit of sentimental analysis to gauge positive and negative commentary of the Games. The analysis is sponsored by an energy company, so it'll be watching for words like "Olympics", "London 2012" and the hashtag #energy2012. [url]
• Researchers from the Center for Sports Engineering Research at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK will be studying the 2012 games to look for significant changes in athletic performance. They've developed a "performance improvement index" to quantify things like: how sprinters are running faster than ever before or that javelin throwers are in a performance plateau. [url]

"They [the opening ceremonies] are complex entertainment spectacles that do not translate well online because they require context, which our award-winning production team will provide for the large primetime audiences that gather together to watch them."

As the London Olympic games honored World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee, NBC hosts Meredith Viera and Matt Lauer admitted — almost bragged — that they didn’t know who he was.

It’s a shame, because it took attention away from a pretty cool tribute to the history of tech and the way it has transformed modern life and communications. Text messages, status updates, photo sharing and smartphones all played a part.

Indeed, every seat had an LED panel to create a stadium-wide megadisplay.

“One more thing I don’t understand,” Viera added.

Evidently someone handed them a memo, because Viera was able to correctly identify Berners-Lee several minutes later, as he typed out a message (on a NeXT cube) that was shown on that oh-so-confusing LED screen.

+1 @jonathanwald the medal for most Olympic whining goes to everyone complaining about what happens every 4 yrs, tape delay @brianstelter

— Vivian Schiller (@VivianSchiller) July 29, 2012

A first for any Olympic Games is the ban on personal or private wireless access points and 3G hubs, which are not allowed at London Olympics events and venues.

iPhones, iPads, and Android phones and tablets are permitted inside venues, but must not be used as wireless access points to connect multiple devices.

"Three decades after it burst from the starting block, the Greek eatery Olympic Gyro has received a cease-and-desist email from the USOC, the nonprofit corporation responsible for training and funding U.S. teams. The June 7 notice demanded deletion of the word "Olympic" from the food shop's title, claiming copyright of the word under a 1978 law."

"The USOC communications department declined to discuss the matter with the Daily News. But in its email, the organization emphasized the need to "protect the rights of companies who financially support the U.S. Olympic Team," such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola."

"It's been a part of my life as long as I can remember," Voulgaridis said Tuesday. "We're very Greek Orthodox, we go back [to Greece] often. For them to take something that is Greek and make it theirs for money is frustrating."

"We believe using the name ‘Ravelympics' for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games," the letter from USOC said. "In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country's finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work."

Almost 300 enforcement officers will be seen across the country checking firms to ensure they are not staging "ambush marketing" or illegally associating themselves with the Games at the expense of official sponsors such as Adidas, McDonald's, Coca-Cola and BP....

Wearing purple caps and tops, the experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are heading the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000.

Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format. You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorised association between an organisation, business, goods or services and London 2012, and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner. The use of our logo or any other Olympic or London 2012 Mark(s) as a link to the Site is not permitted. View our guidelines on Use of the Games’ Marks.

• Prosthetic limbs don't have to look like medical devices or dead body parts. Artificial legs can be made with a variety of different designs, and the manufacturer of these bespoke legs occasionally requests help from volunteers who can "donate" their legs as a scanned template for prosthetic designs. [url]
• Last May, Claire Lomas finished a marathon in a $70,000 bionic suit -- after being paralyzed from the chest down in 2007. She walked about 2 miles per day, so it took her about two weeks to complete the London Marathon. [url]
• MIT researchers have created a glucose fuel cell that could be used to power brain implants or other implantable electronics that could control prosthetic devices. This device could get all the sugar it needs from cerebrospinal fluid, so it wouldn't need batteries (although external prosthetics would still need to be powered separately). [url]

Now, promotional giveaways are hardly a new or crazy idea, and they don't typically say anything bad about a business model—but I don't think that's really what's happening here. Certainly the Times hopes to convert some of those free readers into paid online subscribers, but there's also a clear pattern in the items they choose to make these exceptions for: huge social events that are attended and discussed by lots of people. In other words, precisely the sort of thing where blogs and social media offer the most competition to a newspaper. Why would anybody pay for Olympic reporting when the web is going to be absolutely flooded with constant updates on every little thing that happens, supplied for free by the fans and hangers-on? If the Times content is behind a paywall, it will be all but ignored.

And this really goes to show why, in the long run, paywalls are unsustainable. If the biggest, most popular topics are the hardest to control—and the ones that lose value the most when controlled successfully—while at the same, time social media and citizen reporting output is growing and expanding to new areas constantly, then the inevitable conclusion seems clear: paywalls are, at best, a temporary way of extracting a little bit of cash at the expense of long-term relevance. If your goal is to directly sell news as a product, but you discover that you have to eliminate your prices whenever product demand is highest, something is clearly wrong—you're trying to apply an old model where it doesn't actually fit, and getting kooky results. The solution is not to keep compromising the broken model, but to embrace the underlying realities (infinite content, no barrier to publishing, the huge value of share-ability) that broke it, and build new models around them.

The 81-year-old grandmother of six from King’s Lynn said the last thing she wanted to do was cause a crisis but attacked the rules as 'absolutely ridiculous.

'I thought that the hoops symbol was universal and I think it is disgusting that they can make rules about such little things, she said.