Most sports-related companies and brands didn’t spend the Olympics tweeting about the Olympics. Instead, many of them spent the Games subtweeting the US Olympic Committee for telling them not to tweet about the Olympics.

The USOC was particularly aggressive about enforcing its trademarks in the days leading up to the 2016 Summer Games in Rio. It sent cease & desist letters to companies that are not official Olympic sponsors, demanding they not “post about the Trials or Games on their corporate social media accounts” or in any way use “USOC’s trademarks in hashtags such as #Rio2016 or #TeamUSA.”

The USOC’s letter “further stipulates that a company whose primary mission is not media-related cannot reference any Olympic results, cannot share or repost anything from the official Olympic account and cannot use any pictures taken at the Olympics.” In other words, even retweets are ostensibly prohibited. Brands that were not official Olympic sponsors were told they could not even retweet the official @Olympics Twitter account, which has 4.3 million followers.

It led many brands to openly gripe and snipe at the USOC, if not actually to rebel by breaking its rules. Oiselle, a Seattle-based women’s athletic apparel brand that sponsors a handful of Olympic runners, received a letter from the USOC demanding it remove an Instagram post; it cheekily changed references to the Olympics on its corporate blog to “The Big Event in the Southern Hemisphere.”

But while the USOC’s aggressive protection of its trademarks ruffles feathers and has led many to depict it as a villain, the law is on the USOC’s side.

The Zerorez litigation

A Minnesota carpet-cleaning company, Zerorez, heeded the USOC’s warnings and refrained from posting about the Olympics on social media. Instead, it sued the USOC in federal court for a declaratory judgment affirming its right to engage in Olympic-related chit-chat and to cheer for Olympians that hail from its home state. Viewers and commentators eagerly anticipated resolution.

Unfortunately, the case is a non-starter. Like French hurdler Wilhem Belocian, Zerorez will likely be disqualified on a technicality.

In order for a federal court to have jurisdiction over a dispute, an actual case or controversy must exist between the parties. The USOC’s actions against other companies do not create a controversy with Zerorez.

A case or controversy can arise where a party is actively threatened with litigation—so, if Zerorez tweeted from its corporate account, “Congrats to the 11 Minnesotans competing in 10 different sports at the Rio 2016 Olympics! #rioready” and the USOC sent it a letter saying, “Delete your tweet about the Olympics or we’ll sue you for trademark infringement.”

But the company only alleges that it “anticipated discussing the Olympics on its social media accounts.” It never actually posted such comments. That anticipation is almost certainly not enough to satisfy legal requirements.

Those hoping a court will rule on whether the USOC is applying trademark law over-zealously will probably have to keep waiting.

The USOC’s response to the Zerorez complaint is not due until August 30th, more than a week after closing ceremonies in Rio. By then, the existence of a controversy will be nearly impossible for even a sympathetic court to locate.

Smart money says the USOC will file a motion to dismiss and the court will throw the case out without hearing it.

Is the USOC a trademark bully?

Constraints of subject matter jurisdiction aside, what about the USOC’s assertions that it has the right to silence any company that simply wants to support and celebrate American athletes or participate in the global conversation around the Olympics? Is the USOC, to borrow Ryan Lochte’s new favorite phrase, “over-exaggerating?” Critics have been quick to paint the USOC’s assertions of its rights as “ridiculous,” “completely bogus,” and “bullsh-t” unsupported by trademark law.

Eric Goldman, a trademark and technology law professor at Santa Clara University, says that “Trying to tell companies that they can’t use the hashtag #Rio2016 or #TeamUSA in their tweets, most of the time… go[es] far afield of what the law permits” and constitutes “bullying.”

The USOC has federally registered a number of trademarks, including TEAM USA and design marks that feature the words RIO 2016. Under the Lanham Act, the federal statute that governs trademark use in the US, anyone who uses a registered mark in commerce “in connection with the sale…or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive” will be liable. Critics dispute the USOC’s infringement assertions on two grounds: they argue that using Olympic trademarks on social media in a post that doesn’t directly try to sell anything is not necessarily commercial, and that such social media posts are unlikely to confuse or mislead the public.

The USOC predicted these objections.

In response to an email inquiry from a small business owner seeking clarification of the rules regarding social media, the USOC informed her:

In other words, the USOC argues that if a social media account belongs to a corporation rather than an individual, all posts are inherently commercial in nature, rendering any use of Olympic trademarks a use “in advertising.” And because members of the public are generally aware that some companies pay for the right to be official Olympic sponsors—to the tune of $200 million apiece—they may be susceptible to confusion as to which brands can boast of that status.

The assertion that every social media post from a corporate account constitutes advertising or commercial speech is probably a stretch. The definition of commercial speech is difficult to nail down. If an American company that sells pencils tweets out an article headlined “Is Simone Biles the best gymnast ever or just the best gymnast on the planet?” with the hashtag #Rio2016, it may “raise the brand’s profile” as the USOC alleges, at least among Biles fans. But that doesn’t mean it ought to qualify as commercial speech.

Moreover, the Olympic references that Zerorez contemplated are unlikely to confuse consumers. The Olympics in Rio captured the world’s attention, dominating a news cycle that included a devastating flood in Louisiana and various presidential campaign mini-scandals. Consumers are likely savvy enough that they would not assume a company merely mentioning a major global event implies sponsorship, endorsement, or any particular relationship between the company and the event.

Of course, there are plenty of ways for companies to deceive consumers as to the existence of such a relationship, but the USOC’s blanket ban on “posting about the Games” or using any Olympic-related hashtags is far too broad to exclude only those deceptive posts. Social media users expect hashtags, in particular, to be democratic—my own study suggested that users perceive online hashtags as inviting everyone to participate in conversations on topics of shared interest.

Trademark law recognizes that there are many ways to use someone else’s trademark without misleading consumers or infringing the owner’s rights. That’s why Ocean Spray can market its cranberry juice as “sweet-tart” without infringing Nestle’s SweeTart trademark for candy. So while the USOC has registered TEAM USA for everything from coffee mugs to cowbells, others can arguably use the hashtag #TeamUSA or the phrase “team USA” descriptively when they talk about athletes who represent the United States in the Olympics.

Trademark law also typically permits speakers to use a trademark to reference the brand or company the mark identifies. That type of use is known as “nominative fair use,” and it helps ensure the label on Target’s Up & Up brand shampoo can say “compare to Head and Shoulders®” and the website for Bose headphones can advertise that they are “compatible with most iPod and iPhone models.”

We would expect most Olympic references on social media to be permissible as fair uses. Hashtags in particular serve the function of grouping content on sites like Twitter and Instagram, enabling commercial speakers to participate in the conversation about the Olympics.

If the trademark owner under consideration were a company like Nike or Starbucks, the analysis would end here, and we could all reasonably label the brand a trademark bully for threatening legal action over non-confusing, fair uses.

But the trademark owner is the USOC, and Congress has granted the USOC special trademark rights that go above and beyond what everyone else gets under the Lanham Act.

The USOC has special trademark protection from Congress

The Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act (OASA) grants the USOC the “exclusive right to use” various marks associated with the Olympics and authorizes it to pursue a civil action against anyone who uses the protected marks or any simulation of them in commerce “to induce the sale of any goods or services.”

Federal courts have held that “the protection afforded to Olympic symbols is broader than the rights provided under the Lanham Act, effectively providing the [USOC] with an exclusive right in the Olympic words and symbols.”

And at least one court has controversially gone even further than what OASA appears to include—the court interpreted the Act to extend protection to other marks that reference the Olympics, such as BEIJING 2008. While other courts are unlikely to follow suit, that case sets a troubling precedent given the hundreds of trademarks to which the USOC might plausibly lay claim.

If OASA sounds like it confers “unfettered control over the commercial use of Olympic-related designations,” perhaps that’s precisely what Congress intended.

Courts have acknowledged that the USOC is the only national Olympic committee that does not receive formal financial assistance from the government and, consequently, additional trademark protection is justified. While the idea of such unfettered control of terms and symbols irks critics on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court has held that, because it applies primarily to commercial speech, OASA is “well within constitutional bounds.”

Courts have allowed referential uses of Olympic trademarks as long as they were noncommercial, as in one case regarding the “Stop the Olympic Prison” campaign and another over a magazine entitled “Olympics USA.” But the USOC could make a plausible claim that a non-sponsor’s use of Olympic trademarks and hashtags on social media is at least a little bit commercial, and thus runs afoul of OASA.

Since 2013, companies have been registering hashtags as trademarks with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). I’m skeptical that consumers perceive hashtags to serve a trademark function; parties that have sued over hashtag use have found some courts equally skeptical.

But since OASA doesn’t require a likelihood of confusion and doesn’t tolerate fair-use defenses—two features of federal law that usually serve to keep trademark rights from encroaching on speech or competition—it confers protections to the USOC that are far more robust.

The USPTO provides an official definition of a trademark bully: a trademark owner that “uses its trademark rights to harass and intimidate another business beyond what the law might be reasonably interpreted to allow.”

While the USOC defies social media norms about hashtags, and the majority of folks on social media find it obnoxious, it’s not technically a trademark bully in warning companies to avoid the word “Olympics.” It has the force of the law behind it.

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Alexandra J. Roberts is an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, specializing in intellectual property, trademarks and unfair competition, and entertainment law. Follow her on Twitter @lexlanham.

Note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly described Zerorez. An earlier version of this post first ran at the law blog of Eric Goldman.

Disclosure: The author is the sister of Yahoo Finance writer Daniel Roberts.