The Olympic Committee, usually just occupied with peering deep into the urine of the world’s best athletes and accepting hearing out bids from potential host countries, took some time out from its busy schedule to screw with Portland’s best sausage. Olympic Provisions, named after the 1920 Olympic Mills Building where the business began, will have to change its name to Olympia Provisions. In a press release today, virtuoso sausagemaker Elias Cairo’s company sent a press release calling the name change “a solution to a specific trademark law stipulation, which was brought to Olympia’s attention by the Olympic Committee last year.”
The Olympic Games were at one time the brainchild of Baron Pierre deCoubertin, who envisioned a quadrennial competition in which the youth of the world would gather to compete and spread peace and understanding.
Yeah, about that….
What was once a relatively pure celebration of athletic skill has morphed into an out-of-control behemoth far more concerned with its bottom line than competition. For years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has gone after virtually any business using the word “Olympic” that flashes across their radar. Some of the targets of their cease and desist letters have made for some pretty comical attempts at trademark enforcement. In this case, Portland’s Olympic Provisions isn’t even named after the Olympic Games. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with anything remotely related to the IOC; it’s named after the building Olympic Provisions started in. Not that the legal pinheads who represent the IOC care, of course. They saw another business using “Olympic” in its name, sent another C&D letter, and chalked up yet more billable hours. The target of their letter is a small but very successful local business that make some of the best specialty meats you’ll ever find. They make sausage, and their restaurants lay out arguably the best brunch in Portland. They don’t do courtroom battles with a deep-pocketed behemoth like the IOC. David doesn’t see the sense in battling Goliath and bleeding himself to death spending money on attorneys, so they’re caving, even though they’ve done nothing wrong.
Yet another rousing triumph for Lady Justice.
This is yet another case of the IOC bullying a business in order to protect it’s brand, which no longer in any sense stands for de Coubertin’s dream. It’s about protecting the IOC’s revenue stream…which Olympic Provisions evidently (at least in the eyes of the IOC’s legal eagles) posed a significant risk to. The IOC has morphed from being the protector of the Olympic Games and de Coubertin’s ideal to being just another corrupt and greedy multinational primarily and only concerned with their bottom line.
Olympic Provisions- now Olympia Provisions- will going on doing what they do, which I and many other foodies in Portland will continue to remain grateful for. The IOC will no doubt continue to throw their considerable legal weight around. In doing so they’ll continue to demonstrate just how much they’ve managed to bastardize and corrupt de Coubertin’s dream- but at least they’ll safe from a sausage maker in Portland, Oregon (not exactly) exploiting the Olympic ideal for financial gain.
I suspect that somewhere in a remote, tropical, and breezy paradise, Baron Pierre de Coubertin is weeping softly into his Dos Equis.
