China Sets Up Phone Hotline to Fight Piracy of Olympic Rings
24/04/2007 |
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China will set up a phone hotline to report fake Olympic goods and misuse of the sports event's five-ringed symbol, vowing to deal with cases within 24 hours.
The phone line will be in operation before July in Beijing and other host cities for next summer's Games including Qingdao, the sailing venue, and Shanghai, which holds soccer.
China has drawn criticism from the U.S. for failing to crack down on piracy. The U.S. this month filed two complaints to the World Trade Organization about counterfeiting in China, a problem it says costs global companies $60 billion a year.
``We want to use the Olympics as a reason to strengthen our work on fighting intellectual property right infringements,'' Wang Lijun, deputy director of the Beijing Intellectual Property Office, said at news conference in the capital today. ``We hope that by 2008, we will present a better image of China.''
The hotline will allow information such as unlicensed sales of Olympic products and tickets to be shared among intellectual property rights regulators, Wang said.
The Beijing government last year handled 89 cases of violations of Olympic symbols, Zhang Guohong, director of trademark supervision at Beijing Administration for Industry & Commerce said today.
Most involved using Olympic symbols illegally, such as street vendors selling products and souvenirs or companies using the Olympic mascots in advertisements without first obtaining licensing approval, Zhang said.
(Source: Bloomberg.com)
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