FIFA object to design of Rosberg helmet

According to Die Welt,  FIFA has taken exception to Nico Rosberg's tribute to his country's football team's victory in the World Cup (it has always struck me as slightly odd that the son of the first Finnish world champion should be German, but stranger things have happened). FIFA, who should have learned from the Golden Ball  affair not to take such an absolute view of these matters, asserted that including a representation of the trophy on the helmet infringed its intellectual property rights. Really? Which ones? It doesn't look to me like a trade mark infringement - not the slightest impact on the ability of the trade mark (I assume there is one) to identify the source of anything - and anyway FIFA don't sell World Cups, do they? - and if anything the investment function and advertising function will surely be enhanced by such use. By a substantial majority, readers of MarkenBlog agree that this isn't infringing use.



And even if there is a potentially infringing act, it's only actually infringing if done without the owner's consent. Not to give that consent is remarkably churlish, and makes the owner look pretty stupid. But FIFA already looked pretty stupid after Golden Balls, so I suppose they had nothing to lose.