Intellectual Property Loss Exposures in Sport and Recreation

Sport and recreation organizations use intellectual property, which should be considered when developing their organizations' risk management plans. Intellectual property includes products of human intelligence that have value and can be protected under federal law, such as copyrightable works, ideas, discoveries, and inventions.

The most common intellectual property loss exposures are copyrights, trademarks and patents. Examples of these are competitive rules that you may wish to copyright; trademarks, such as your team name, and patents, which might cover athletic equipment that you have invented.

When doing risk management planning, include in your list of issues to address, the topic of intellectual property and add as subcategories, copyrights, trademarks and patents. Brainstorm about what intellectual property that you have that may require protects. For example, if your organization has a newsletter, the U.S. government grants legal rights of copyright protection. A trademark is a legal right granted by the U.S. government to use a distinctive design or set of words that identifies an organization’s product or service. The Nike “swoosh” is a good example of this. A patent refers to the legal right granted by the U.S. government to exclusively use a new, useful, and non-obvious invention.

If you have included intellectual property issues in your risk management plan, you may consider consulting with an attorney that specializes in intellectual property to ensure that your organization is protected. Absent legal protection of your intellectual property, your organization will not be able to successfully enforce the use of such intellectual property. For example, the monies that you spend to promote or market your organization may be wasted if there is another organization with the same or similar trademark.

You may not feel that your organization does not have any intellectual property exposure. However, risk management planning is not complete unless you’ve considered these issues.