Beijing is using the carrot of huge rewards to enlist citizens to report Olympic logo infringement cases in the run-up to the Games.
A person who steps forward with information will be rewarded with five percent of what lawbreakers are fined, according to a regulation jointly issued by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the Legal Affairs Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.
The largest rewards will be 100,000 yuan (14,286 U.S. dollars), the regulation said.
The drive was launched to step up crackdown on infringement upon the copyrights of Olympic logos, such as manufacturing and using -- without authorization -- the official Mascots of the Beijing Games, the "Fuwas", and the emblems for the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics Games, Beijing's Olympic slogan and the symbol of the Olympic torch relay.
Last year, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce dealt with 95 such infringement cases and imposed 1.03 million yuan (147,143 U.S. dollars) in fines.
The trademark logos are owned by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, and only authorized companies are allowed to manufacture products bearing the logos.
(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2008)