Idiot alert: U.S. Olympic Committee forces LA and Chicago comedy clubs to change name

Absolutely moronic: No, I'm not an attorney, but one tenet of trademark law is that the holder of the trademark is entitled to protection from others using the name and confusing consumers when the same name, in this case Olympics, is used.

Or that people may assume that the US Olympic Committee sanctions comedy clubs.

But, no one, I repeat, no one, has ever thought that Chicago's ImprovOlympic comedy club, or its Los Angeles counterpart, was any way associated with the US Olympic Committee.

From AP:

The Chicago comedy club that helped launch the career of Mike Myers and others is changing its name after the U-S Olympic Committee threatened to sue over trademark infringement.

ImprovOlympic owner Charna Halpern says the club is in the process of changing its name to I-O. She says that process started about two weeks ago and the focus now is on changing the Web site and the awning in front of the club.

Time magazine is reporting in an article tomorrow that the U-S Olympic Committee threatened to sue the club if it didn't change its name.

Halpern says the dispute began more than 20 years ago after the Chicago club opened. Its five-year-old counterpart in Los Angeles will also change its name.

So ImprovOlympic will soon be known as IO. Maybe not a smart move, because one of Jupiter's moons is Io, and inhabitants there may decide to sue.