20.09.2007
Olympic Statistics (of Infringement Cases)
The Chinese State Intellectual Property Office SIPO reports 33 cases of “general violations of Olympic symbols” during the first half of 2007, with an estimated value of 301,700 Yuan (30,000 Euro). The state imposed 284,200 Yuan in fines (27,000 Euro) and seized and removed 5,123 labels containing Olympic symbols.
In the same period, SIPO handled 109 cases of dealing with the infringement of exclusive rights of Olympic symbols (probably counterfeiting of goods produced by exclusive licensees) with an estimate value of 891,500 Yuan (85,000 Euro) and the total amount of fines running up to 1,065,100 Yuan (101,000 Euro).
The customs in the province Fujian confiscated 5,000 counterfeited tags using the log “Beijing 2008 Olympics” or “Beijing 2008″.
Considering the overall low number of cases, one can probably safely assume the number of unreported cases to be much higher.
