How to Commercially Protect a Race / Rally / Challenge?

[thailand69]

Just been thinking (oh dear!).......

What stops someone setting up another ARC? I suspect the current organisers cannot prevent folk sailing from Point A to B at whatever time of the year they wish to in whatever numbers.

Is it only the "name" that is protected and if so how or is it "just" that they rely on the simple fact that the current organisation is trusted as being competent and cost effective and therefore they know that the punters will come to them not some new and unknown competition?


I ask cos' of a related issue, if a Company wanted to establish a Round the World Race / Challenge for Junk rigged, boats between 28 and 29 foot which are painted Red, Green and Orange........and was daft enough to offer a prize for folk /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif.......what would stop other folks doing <u>exactly</u> the same (same start and finish points and same requirements etc) and also them using <u>exactly</u> the same name (if it was not specific to a brand i.e. the "English World Challenge" instead of the "Whitbread Whatever Race").

Not entirely academic (just 99.99%).......

 

[Twister_Ken]

Case in point, there are several races around the Isle of Wight, but there's only one Round The Island Race. If you wanted to create another round the island, there's nothing to stop you, although I wouldn't advise doing it on the same day (although a clockwise one starting on the last couple of hours of the flood, and meeting the other fleet around the back of Wight could be good!)

 

[Bru]

Register a limited company with the name of the event

and/or

Register the name of the event as a trade mark

If the above are not commercially viable, at least indicate that the name of the event is a trade mark with the (TM) symbol (registration is not required)

However, even without any of the above, the legal tort "passing off" may come to your aid. Basically, if anybody, deliberately or accidentally, gives the impression that they are you and you suffer a loss as a result you can sue (although whether you'd be wise to do so is another matter) and may be able to obtain an injunction against the passer off

To use the ARC example, if I set up a rival event and used the words "the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers" without qualification it'd tend to give the impression that it was the ARC organised by the World Cruising Club. I would be passing off my event as their event. However, I could easily cover my rear by slightly changing the phrase to "an Atlantic rally for cruisers". See how simply changing "the" to "an" and removing the capitals on rally and cruisers is sufficient to create a totally different impression.

 

[bedouin]

In the specific case of the ARC you can pretty well sew that one up with commercial agreements with the departure / arrival points (given the lack of real choice of both point and time of departure).

Other than that it is very difficult to stop copy-cats

 

[thailand69]

Cheers folks. A bit to mull over.

(BTW I am not thinking of starting a new ARC!)

 

[Brierley]

At the London Boat Show there was at least one other organisation offering Atlantic crossings in company, though there was no race element involved. I think it was limited to a much smaller number of boats (40-ish ?) but the principle was similar to the ARC - safety in numbers, help on hand if anything goes wrong and all stops / parties / paperwork etc sorted out for you. They also offered Round the World circuits