In an interview with reporter from the official website of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), IOC marketing director Micheal Payne and BOCOG vice-president Jiang Xiaoyu said that the rights protection work of the logo is careful and BOCOG has made necessary preparations to show the world China’s positive attitude towards and capability in the issue of intellectual property rights protection.

Protecting the intellectual property rights of the emblem is a major responsibility of BOCOG, that explains why the bidding emblem was replaced by the current one, said Micheal Payne, since the bidding logo can only be protected in the hosting country, but the newly unveiled emblem will be protected globally.

In the past six months, we and the BOCOG have made a lot of work in this aspect, and the enthusiasm displayed by the Beijing government and BOCOG in intellectual property rights protection was the highest we have ever seen, added Micheal Payne.

He pointed out that a trademark law is of vital importance for any country hosting the Olympic Games. Taking the Sydney Games as an example, it met great challenges in protecting its copyright of its emblem. BOCOG has showed great determination to IOC and the protection work is a chance for China to show itself to the world, and meanwhile would leave a precious legacy for the nation.

Before the unveiling of the emblem BOCOG has published last year a law for protection of Olympic intellectual property rights, which was followed by a similar local law approved by the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, according to Jiang Xiaoyu. The registration work of the new emblem within China has been finished and meanwhile its global registration has been also completed under the help of IOC advisors.

After the unveiling of the 2008 logo BOCOG will pay high attention to the protection of its intellectual property rights, added Jiang. However, since China is a vast country we can not rule out the possibility of torts and our law enforcement is now ready for striking hard such actions according to law to protect the interests of lawful sponsors. Jiang hoped the media to make more efforts in raising the public’s law awareness and expressed the conviction that the protection work of Olympic intellectual property rights is of rosy prospects in China.