Bloomberg legal reporter Ava Benny-Morrison discusses the conviction of Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui for a $1 billion fraud. Sunita Patel, a professor at UCLA Law School and the founding director of the UCLA Law Veterans Clinic, discusses the effects of the Supreme Court decision on homelessness. Trademark expert Fara Sunderji, a partner at Dorsey & Whitney, discusses the Olympic trademarks. June Grasso hosts.
This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. After a trial that lasted almost two months, exiled Chinese tycoon Guo Wangui was convicted of a massive fraud and duping investors out of one billion dollars to fund his lavish lifestyle. Quo's criticism of the Communist Party won him legions of online followers, and prosecutors say he fleeced those loyal followers out of their money for seemingly legitimate businesses and then diverted the funds to himself so he could spend his days living in his twenty six million dollar mansion, lounging on his thirty seven million dollar yacht, driving his million dollar red Lamborghini, not to mention a four million dollar Ferrari for his son, a more than one million dollar jewelry box, and other extravagant purchases. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter av Benny Morrison, who covered the trial, ava the jury convicted him of fraud and racketeering nine counts out of twelve. Tell us about the prosecution's case.
Marsgow was charged with twelve different offenses related to a scheme to defraud investors out of a billion dollars. Prosecutors alleged that he did this in a number of smaller schemes, one related to a cryptocurrency exchange, another related to a farm to lians program, and an exclusive membership club called G Clubs. The allegation was that he really pried on his followers, that he had a mass through his anti Chinese Communist Party campaign, A lot of people online gravitated towards his online videos and his very outspoken critical statements against the Chinese government, and then he appealed to them to invest money in the various business opportunities. The prosecution said that he took a lot of this money, more than a billion dollars, and spent it on himself and his family.
He had incredible wealth, he flaunted, and the prosecution spent some time on showing how he spent his money.
Yes, the prosecution said that he spent a lot of investor funds on enriching himself and his family. So that included a twenty six million dollar mansion in New Jersey, a red Lamborghini, a Ferrari for his son, a sixty thousand dollars TV, ridiculously expend his mattresses, all of those luxuries that went into living a very opulent lifestyle. The defense came back and said, look, he is used to this lifestyle. He came from a really wealthy family of properties developers in China. And while most people might think it's outrageous to spend thirty five thousand dollars on a mattress, these were things that Musglow was used to. He's always argued, and he shouldn't be judged for that.
His crusade against the Communist Party, What part did that play in the trial?
It was a big argument that the defense put forward. So they tried to paint him as someone who had devoted his life to the whistleblower movement and put himself in grave danger because of that. They said that he was an unapologetic critic of the Chinese government and fled persecution in China to the US, where he sought political asylum in twenty seventeen. And the defense said that he had been the target of retaliation by the Chinese government. They'd tried to extradite him back to China a few years ago, that hacked into his bank account, his phones, his laptop. They said that he had put himself at great risk and painted him as of this brave political crusader and an activist. The government essentially suggested that this was all a bit of a front and even if he was a political activist, it didn't have anything to do with the crux of the case, which was that he defrauded a lot of investors out of a lot of money.
A two month trial start with the prosecution what kinds of witnesses which were the most effective.
The most effective witnesses were some of the investors themselves that the prosecution called. They described investing money in some of Milesgow's businesses and his companies like GTV Media, which was a social media platform on g clubs, the exclusive members only club, the farm to Loan program, and a crypto exchange. They said that they gravitated towards Miles Glow's videos where he was critical of the Chinese government. Some of those videos he recorded in the penthouse at the famous Sherry Nedeline hotel that overlooks Central Park in Manhattan, or on the deck of his one hundred and fifty two foot super yacht, which was often maud Off the Posters, Connecticut, where he had another house so some of these investors spoke about how they admired him and they believed in what he was saying and were on the same page as he was when it came to beaking out against the Chinese government. So they felt comfortable in investing their money with him. But then they never got it back. And I remember one witness being on the stand too well, get quite emotional a lot of times, was saying, you know, just because you're anti CCP doesn't give you an excuse to rip people off. Doesn't it give you an excuse to commit fraud either. So they were some of the most powerful I think prosecution witnesses. We also heard from luxury car dealers who sold Malsgow or his companies these extremely expensive and rare cars as well. What are the other witnesses was a managing director at a hedge fund run by Kyle Bass. Miles Glow had transferred one hundred million dollars, which prosecution said was stolen from investors to one of Kyle Bass's hedge funds. Interestingly, he was actually acquitted of three chargers, and those three charges relate to the stock offering in GTV, the social media platform company, and the one hundred million dollar transfer to the Hedge Fund. On the defense side, Milesglow didn't get on the witness stand himself, but the witnesses that they called all sort of spoke to Milescow's position as a political activist and why he felt so strongly about speaking out against the ECP, that.
Being the Chinese Communist Party and he was friends with Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who got a million dollar payment from one of Guo's companies and was arrested on Guo's yacht. Now, the prosecution played for the jury a secretly recorded phone call between Guo and his subordinates in twenty twenty one. What did that show?
Yes, the prosecution in its closing address to the jury, opened with this quite dramatic phone call recording. Before the prosecutor even started speaking, he just pressed the play button and this recording played out across the courtroom and you could hear Miles Glow yelling at some of his employees. He was speaking with some of his staff and the discussion was around the transfer of money from one of Milesclow's entities to somewhere else, and one of Milesglow's employees was saying like, hang on, we need to go to the board with this, and then all of a sudden you can hear Miles Glow who's speaking. Amendorin translation was included in subtitles before the jury. He's yelling at his employee, calling them a scumbag, telling them to go to hell, telling them to shut the hell up. So it was quite dramatic, and what the prosecution was trying to do there was say to the jury. Milesgow might sound very reasonable and softly spoken and almost at times demure and calm in his videos that many of his followers and investors have seen, but you know behind the scenes he could be quite brash and abusive to his employees.
His supporters were in the courtroom every day, a lot of his supporters.
Yes, every single day, the court was packed with his supporters. There must have been anywhere between thirty and forty people every single day. Without a doubt, they would file in there. Some of them were wearing T shirts or jackets or scarves with the G Fashion logo on it, and G Fashion was another one of Milesglow's companies, so you could tell that they were very, very supportive of him. Every time he was walking to the courtroom and they would all sort of wave and smile at him, and at different points throughout the trial days he would turn around, he would look at the public gallery and give everyone a smile. It was quite amazing to see them turn up every single day over the course of almost two months. Towards the end of the trial, there were also some detractors, so there was a little bit of tension in the courtroom and you could see towards the end there there were more US Marshals turning up to make sure everyone was sort of behaving themselves, and the court security officers were making sure that they were talking to these people and telling them to be respectful of the environment that they were in. Once the verdict was handed down, we were expecting some sort of emotions and tensions to boil over, but everyone was very calm. Even Malesgow himself was very calm, you know. If anything, he was comforting his lawyers, who fought very hard for him and put up a pretty good case throughout his trial. He hugged one of his defense lawyers, was shaking the hands of the others for he was led away. One for his supporters got outside the courthouse. There was a little bit of yelling and back and forth outside the court building, and some of the US marshals had to step in and tell them just to calm down. So, yeah, it was quite impressive to see the people that turned out to support him every single day.
And something very unusual here the judge kept the names of the juror's secret. What was the reason for that.
That's right before the trial began, there were arguments on both sides as to why there should be an anonymous jury, and this is quite an unusual step that the prosecution had argued that the jurors were potentially at risk if they were identified because of the very strong and loyal supporter base that Milgo had and they were a bit worried about and maybe retaliation, whereas the defense had argued that yes, the jury should be made anonymous, but the risk was coming from the CCP. So the judge didn't rule either way, but she said that yees essentially because this case has attracted so much intense interest, that the jury should remain anonymous. And they were escorted by US marshals to the court each day and.
They deliberated over four days, but they had to start again.
Yes, they started, and then were a few hours in before one of the jurors let it slip in deliberations that they had googled the name of the co defendant, a man called William g who is actually still at large.
He was a.
Financial advisor to Mirs Glow and featured prominently throughout the trial. And then the jury four person wrote a letter to the judge saying, you know, we've got a problem here. Now, this is sort of jury service one O one. You're not to read any external news article about the case that you're serving on the jury of You're not to google, certainly anyone that's mentioned in the case or do your own research. So everyone sort of held their breath when the judge read out that letter, and you know, we're warried, is this going to be a mistrial? But fortunately they were able to just excuse that dura that did the googling and bring in an alternate and they started deliberations again. So that jury deliberated for about three days until they came to a verdict.
You always have to have those alternate's ready. So he's going to be standards on November nineteenth, how much time.
Does he face even though he was acquitted on three out of the twelfth counts. He still faces decades in jail for the most serious charges, the fraud charges, the racketeering conspiracy. He faces up to twenty years each on those counts. So he's definitely facing a long period in prison. And because he is a Chinese citizen, you know, he faces extradition back to China as well, and there is an Interpol red notice out for him issued by the Chinese government. So his troubles will I think continue once his release from prison.
And he's already been in prison for more than a year now. Thanks so much, Ava. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Ava Benny Morrison coming up the ramifications of this Supreme Court's decision on homelessness. This is Bloomberg. For the first time in four decades this term, the Supreme Court ruled on homelessness, and the ramifications of that decision are already being felt across the country. In a decision split down ideological lines, the Court's conservative majority reinstated in Oregon city's law banning homeless residents from sleeping outside in public places. Now, cities across the country are weighing their policies, and some are preparing to take a harder line on homeless encampments. Joining me is Sanita Patel, a professor at UCLA Law School and the founding director of the UCLA Law Veterans Legal Clinic. She co authored an amicust brief in the case with the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans that was quoted by Justice Sonya Sotomayor in her descent. What was at stake in the Grant's past case.
The Supreme Court was deciding whether or not to allow punishment for homeless people with no access to shelter who were sleeping outside was as little as a blanket or a bald up shirt for a pillow. And what was behind all of this was a prior Ninth Circuit decision called Boise versus Martin, where the Ninth Circuit had said, okay, cities and states can use restrictions on when, how and where unhoused folks can sleep outside, but they can't criminalize activities like sleeping outside or eating outside, as Justice Brown poised out, if there is no alternative, reasonable place to sleep. So when you had no adequate shelter space, there was a lot of hand ringing by the cities and the states saying that they weren't able to enforce the laws well enough. And what we see with the Grant's past decision is that the core kind of buys into the unnecessary hand ringing from the cities and states that weighed in because they were complaining that the Ninth Circuit's prior decision in Martin tied their hands from enforcing anti camping laws.
And so why did the court come to the conclusion that this wasn't cruel and unusual punishment?
The Court was really looking at whether or not these ordinances from Grant's Pass Oregon criminalized and punished homeless people for the status of being homeless, or whether it was for actions associated with being homeless. And so you see this interesting play in the majority and the dissent where the majority says, well, you know, this is a punishment not of status, but of actions that people are doing. This is not actually a case that falls squarely within the prior precedent called Robinson, which had been in place for fifty years already. And the court decided that the punishments here were not actually cruel, that they were not. So that's what they decided.
And just as Sonya Sotomayor's descent had some emotional overtones in describing the crisis of homelessness.
Well, you know, I think that for many people in this country, the idea of living on the streets is quite a stark reality, especially if you've lived on the West Coast or she's from New York City. In the Bronx, you see the plight of unhoused folks on a daily basis, and in those circumstances were left to think, well, how can it not be cool to require someone to sleep on the streets without even a blanket in the cold winter of Grant's past and have nowhere else to go? So here, you know, I thought she actually did a very careful analysis of the purpose, the text, and the enforcement of the Grants ordinances. I agreed with how she showed the ordinances actually criminalized status. Right, So the action of sleeping outside is something that necessarily defines the status of being unhoused, and it is a human biological need. Another thing that she points out, which is what the Ninth Circuit pointed to as well, is that the Martin decision left open lots of ways to regulate homelessness. So you're still able to find or ticket someone because you don't like where they're sleeping. You're still able to sign or ticket someone if they are intoxicated in a public area, if they're urinating a public area, if they're obstructing an entryway or panhandling. You know, there's a host of petty offenses that you can still enforce. It was really just this idea of sleeping outside at night with a small covering, which literally defines being unhoused, that was in front of the court. What they decided was that in order to apply the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause, it would need to extend the prior Robinson ruling sort of extended slightly around the status offense. And luckily they said Robinson is still the law of the land right now, which is good. It's been a president that's been around for decades, and when the court of precedent it can turn things on its head, and.
We've seen that a lot in the last few terms. In Grant's pass, were they actually arresting people who were sleeping outside at night, Yes.
That's my understanding. The two plaintiffs in this case, they were cited for and find and eventually excluded from the city, but they were sleeping in cars. The definition of camping in the Grands Pass Organance includes sleeping in any vehicle.
How do you think this decision will affect homeless veterans.
Yes, that's a very good question. So you see, a Veteran's Legal Clinic worked on behalf of the Coalition for Homeless Veterans, and we filed an amicist brief in the case that Justice Sotomayor did cite briefly, and we really presented the picture of what it's like to be an unhoused veterans, the complications that come with acquiring work, or receiving your medications, or finding your social worker. But when you sleep outside and you're being shuffled around because of criminalization efforts, because of police enforcement. And so this decision is going to affect veterans in the same way it's going to affect other on housed populations, on house communities. We will see the veterans that we represent, the veterans around the country getting moved around, unable to locate and connect with their service providers, lose their medications, lose their paperwork. All of these things make it extremely difficult for them to obtain permanent housing, even in a resource rich system like the VA, where there are lots of options and different ways for individuals to the comme house and get connected to housing and justice.
Sodo Mayor, in quoting from your Brief and her Descent, talked about Aaron Spencer, a disabled Marine Corps veteran. Tell us what she said.
You know, she's discussing how diverse the veteran community is and how this decision is unfortunately going to affect marginalized and vulnerable populations more. We know that, for example, thirty seven percent of the homeless community is black, even though they're thirteen percent of the general population, and because of structural racism lack of access to housing and jobs, we have this racial disparity when it comes to veterans. We also have a pretty stark disparity for unsheltered veterans in comparison to the veteran population the general population.
And so here she's.
Pointing out that veterans are more likely to become homeless if they have served in combat, if they have PTSD, And she talks about the case of Aaron Spenser, who is a disable Bold Marine Corps veteran, and he was putting his tools and his bike parts and other things that he uses to make money on the side in a cart, and then he was arrested repeatedly for illegal lodgings, for being on the streets, and every time his car and his belongings they were taken away. And you know, she quotes him saying, the massive number of times the city or state has taken all I possessed leaves me in a macuous daja zoo. And this is really indicative of the stories that we hear from unhoused veterans and unhoused people in general. There's this sense of I don't know when I wake up, am I going to be able to sleep here or not? Are my things going to be taken? Am I going to be facing some bureaucratic nightmare today as I try to access services and food and shelter and just the basic human needs.
How does this opinion leave you feeling as an advocate for homeless veterans rather than as a lawyer.
I am doing a research project on homelessness in La County, and you know, I think this idea of the cycle of moving in and out the majority opinions sort of suggests that well, police are really on the front lines of protecting our un housed folks and getting them into services. I mean, it's just not the lived reality of the people we speak to, and that is really a problem. I think when the Supreme Court doesn't recognize the wealth of research, social science and other research that's out there, but instead is quoting from the Sheriff's Association brief on the work that they do to help connect veterans, that's one thing that is a bit of a problem. But I'm hopeful that there are other ways for us to challenge these laws. I mean, as an advocate, we always say, well, the fight's going to continue, right, So the court left open lots of other ways to challenge really problematic laws. We have the do process clause. There's several claims there. There's also in Dan's past there is a provision on the fines and Fees clause excessive punishment clause that is still a live challenge that's in front of the district Court. The city didn't appeal the loss that they have faced on that claim because they really couldn't. I mean, the punishment that they're seeking again someone for sleeping outside is so excessive and beyond the pale that they would have lost clearly, and so they didn't even challenge that. So advocates can raise those claims. Advocates can also raise other claims like vagueness challenges. There are some other ways to continue the sort of legal challenges. Now that's me being an optimist. The reality is that I think that this is just going to clear the groundwork for more police actions, more coercive activity, and ultimately that is not going to actually solve the problem in the crisis of homelessness that we're facing today. There are proven solutions. Obviously, we need more affordable housing. We need more access to the resources that will help people not only become housed, but stay housed, because there's a problematic, kind of cyclical effect if you stay homeless, if you have these tickets, you know, they affect your credit, and then when your credit is bad, you can't find a house. I mean, this is all very connected, and so you know, unfortunately we had the LAPD already has tweeted that, you know, now we can do what we want sort of thing, and I think that, unfortunately that's going to be the law enforcement mentality rather than you know, helping you know, I should say hopefully cities and counties around the country will not take the bait. They will actually decide that they're going to decline to over enforce these laws and put excessive finds through the court system, which will only make it more difficult for people to move out of living on the street.
Are there any cities that are dealing with the homelessness crisis successfully?
You know, remarkably? I would say yes. I mean, Houston has made a lot of progress in solving homelessness by funding housing services. Also, Miami Dade County has done a pretty good job, and Milwaukee has also had like a remarkable ninety percent decrease in unsheltered population.
So some hope there. Thanks so much, Sanita. That's Professor Sanita Patel of UCLA Law School. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show. It's time for the Summer Olympics and there are lots of rules for companies who are not sponsors. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. The Summer Olympics is coming up, and like everything else at the Olympics, there are lots of rules and regulations around the exclusive rights of the international Olympic Committee and the us Olympic Committee, to everything from symbols like those famous interlocking rings to terms like team USA. The IOC and USOC are hyper vigilant, so companies have to be very careful or they could get a cease and desist letter or worse yet, be sued. Joining me is an expert in trademarks, Fara soon Dirgy, a partner at Dorsey and Whitney, tell us about the exclusive rights of the IOC and the USOC.
Sure, So the trademark situation resurspect to the Olympics in the United States is very interesting and it's a little bit different than your average brand. While the USOC does have regular trademark registrations, they also have statutory protection in the form of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which was originally passed in nineteen seventy eight and then it was amended again ten years later. So the reason for all of this is actually pretty interesting. The United States is one of the few countries where the Olympic teams are not funded by the government. The funding actually comes solely from sponsorships, and so in order to keep those sponsorship dollars really rolling in from large sponsors. They have to make promises to the sponsors or the would be sponsors and say, hey, brands, you guys are paying a lot of money to sponsor the team. We're going to make sure that other brands who are not paying those sponsorship dollars don't step on your exclusive rights. And so that's basically the genesis of the statutory protection. There was actually a Supreme Court case in eighty seven where the San Francisco Arts and Athletics Association they wanted to use gay Olympic games, and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court confirmed that they could not use it. The statutory rights that are involved here don't violate the First Amendments. And an interesting piece that also came out of that case was actually that the USOC when they sue somebody for trademark infringement, unlike regular brands who own trademark registrations, they do not have to prove likelihood of confusion. It's almost a strict liability circumstance where you use the trademark Olympics, you use go for the gold, or let the game begin. In any kind of advertising here in the United States, and it's automatically themed trademark infringement and then they take it from there. So it's really sort of a step above regular brands.
So now let's go through the basic list of do not use, starting with the Olympic Rings logo.
So the protection here extends to the Olympic ring logo, it extends to the word Olympics, Paralympics, Team USA, go for the goals, let the Games begin, pairs twenty twenty four, and the list is a little bit longer, but those are sort of the main ones. There is an interesting carve out that happened, I believe when the statutory section got amended where companies who are validly using the term Olympic in association with the Olympic Mountains in Washington are allowed to do that, but everybody else is not going to be able to use it.
And what about images of the athletes or you know, snippets from the games.
The other things that you can't use when you're doing marketing during the Olympics or frankly ever, is if you're not affiliated and you don't have a license, you can't stay put up a social media post and use an image of you know, an athlete participate at the Olympics. It violates the right of publicity of the particular athletes who's in the picture, and it also violates the copyright that's probably owned by, you know, the International Olympic Committee or the broadcaster who took the video or the picture.
One of the biggest concerns is what's referred to as ambush marketing.
Tell us what that is, sure.
Ambush marketing is it's actually kind of an interesting way to market and it's not your sort of typical we're gonna put an ad up or you know, talking about our brand or our company, or we're going to put an ad on social media. Ambush marketing is something that's a little bit dicey, and it is actually prohibited by the Ted Stevens Zat and the International Olympic Committee. Wherever the games are, they've got pretty strong rules against it. One of the sort of interesting examples of ambush marketing happened in the twenty ten World Cup. Budweiser was actually the official sponsor for beer and this Dutch beer brand, Bavaria. They purchased a bunch of tickets to one of the matches and they gave them to a bunch of women and asked all these women to wear bright orange mini dresses. And so when you know, you looked at the crowd, your eyes were instantly drawn to the sort of orange sections, and you know, that's that's a good example of ambush marketing. And after the game, I believe the games were in South Africa that year, the women were actually detained and the beer brand was charged. You know, again, they pay the official sponsor pays a lot of money, you know, millions and millions of dollars in many cases to sponsor and have all the ads and stuff like that during the game, and a brand like this bought a handful of tickets and they got a bunch of publicity. And you know, the World Cup, FIFA, the NFL does not obviously permit that or like that, and the Olympics don't like it either.
How aggressive is the IOC and the USOC in protecting their rights?
The Olympics is very aggressive. In the United States. The USOC, which is the US Olympic Committee, they have an army of lawyers, whether they have outside lawyers or inside lawyers working on this. In the period around the games, they send out so many CEASYM business letters each time there are games. They also provide guidance beforehand for marketers trying to avoid mishaps during the games. But I think their team is probably online and working, you know, twenty four hours a day during the games to try to ensure that nobody who's not a sponsor is really working with and you know, capitalizing on the goodwill of the Olympics trademarks.
And is it just big companies they go after or do they go after small companies?
Everywhere in the past they've gone after everyone, they have gone after. I believe there was a case now it's probably many years ago where they went after a small carpet company in Minnesota for using Olympics in their name. So I think they really they go after big companies and small companies. Probably now after so many years of really large enforcement, I think that major brands are well aware of the situation that are not going to step on the toes of the Olympics rights. It's probably more smaller brands these bes. And with social media, it's so easy to step on the toes here because the USOC doesn't want you you using hashtag team USA, hashtag Olympics they think that that is there, and they're right in the United States per the Statute that those are their trademarks and they don't want them being used without payments.
Do they go after individuals who might do that on social media?
So they don't go after individuals. I think there's sort of four buckets here, right. There is the companies who pay to be sponsors of the Olympics and pay a large amount of money to be sponsored the Olympics. Then there's another group of companies and brands that sponsor individual athletes. They don't sponsor the games themselves, but they sponsor individual athletes.
Then there are.
Companies and brands that don't pay any sponsorship fees and are just out there trying to capitalize on interesting marketing situations, which really comprises a large group of companies, right. And then they're individuals. Individuals have a lot more rights for fair use because they are not using these trademarks in commercial manners. If I want to go on an Instagram account and just write a posting I love the Olympics, I think it's awesome hashtag team USA. The likelihood that the USOC is going to come after me, I.
Think it's pretty small also considering I don't really.
Have that any followers, it's not really making any intact on anything. But companies who do it, it's a different story because it's a commercial use on social media or you know, in another forum. The middle sort of group of brands who sponsor athletes but don't sponsor the games officially. In recent years or recent Olympics, the IOC and the USOC has created many, many rules for those types of brands about when they can congratulate their athletes, how they can care adu their athletes, how often they can post during they call the blackout period. And it's a very complex set of rules about you know, what they can do and how they can do it, what imagery they can use. Like I said, it's very complex, but they do provide pretty good guidance on it.
Can AI be used in any way to get around these AI.
Is obviously the hot topic of the year. I guess it was clearly hot before that. But AI and marketing can be fantastic. It can also be really dangerous legally, and using AI to for example, clone of voice, that's not going to get you around a rite of publicity claim. It's not going to get you around any kind of copyright claims or anything like that. You still have to be mindful of the basic IP rights of different rights holders. And just because you're using AI doesn't mean that you can step back and say, oh, we didn't create this. You know it's not us. And just because it's technically possible, for example, to clone someone's voice, doesn't mean you have their permission and you could still get food.
Any closing thoughts for marketers who fall in the last bucket where they don't sponsor the games and they don't sponsor a particular athlete, there's still opportunities to be involved in.
Marketing during the Olympics. You just have to be very careful. Obviously, you can't use the trademarks, as we said, you can't use footage, and you can't use images of athletes. But that doesn't mean that your team can't be watching the Olympics and you know, moving dynamically and creating really great ads about you know what has happened. I think one of the best examples sort of real time marketing happened in the It's actually one of my favorites in the twenty thirteen Super Bowl when the lights went out in the middle of that Super Bowl, there's this very well known now in marketing circle tweet that went out from Oreos. They wrote a post that said something like power out, you can still dunk in the dark. They didn't mention Super Bowl, they didn't even mention big games, but the tweet it went out like wildfire, and everybody picked it up during the game and thought it was this great marketing sensation. And they got so many impressions from it, and they didn't step on anybody's IP rights. It was a really great piece of marketing. There's another one, specifically from the Olympics that I always liked to cite to as a good example. Nike has an ad where they have a picture of a boy standing on one of those platforms above a very large pool that you often see, you know, in the diving competition in the Olympics, and it's a small boy and we just see his back and it says, find your greatness. It's not using anybody else's IP You're not having an image of a famous diver on the platform. There's no flags, there's no Olympic trade, but you get the look and the feel and the spirit of the Olympics in there and I think it's such a great ad.
Some great examples, Thanks so much, Fara. That's Fara, Soondergy of Dorsey and Whitney. And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Podcast. Remember you can always get the latest legal news by subscribing and listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg