In the survey case, you'd probably be asked to sign an NDA about the contents of the survey, or some agreement prohibiting you from going and registering those names as your own trademarks (as well as domains).
I agree that he probably speculated and got lucky, but it's a slippery slope as the GP suggested, and just because there happens to be a pattern in the trademarks Olympic committees register, I don't think they should be given special treatment and allowed to retroactively claim domains.
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What about the 43,000 coins bitcoinica reported stolen in the same breach? Still overblown? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66979.0
You can exchange bitcoins for namecoins (there are a few exchanges that allow this) and then spend your namecoins to register the name.
In the survey case, you'd probably be asked to sign an NDA about the contents of the survey, or some agreement prohibiting you from going and registering those names as your own trademarks (as well as domains). I agree that he probably speculated and got lucky, but it's a slippery slope as the GP suggested, and just because there happens to be a pattern in the trademarks Olympic committees register, I don't think they should be given special treatment and allowed to retroactively claim domains.