A JEWELRY company in Shenzhen has filed a lawsuit against the organizing committee of the Rio Olympics, claiming its design of the Olympic medal box resembled the design of one of the company’s jewelry boxes, according to yesterday’s local Chinese-language newspapers.

Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court accepted the case, the Shenzhen firm, Wu Fenghua Jewelry Internet Co., said Tuesday.

Pictures provided by the company showed that, aside from the color, the medal box for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics was similar to the jewelry box designed by the Shenzhen company. The medal box was a timber color and the jewelry box was black.

According to the Shenzhen jeweler, the jewelry box was designed by Xu Erjian, the chief designer of TTF Haute Joaillerie, on March 31, 2015. TTF is a well-known jewelry design group in Shenzhen and the Wu Huafeng company is one of its branches.

Wu Huafeng, president of TTF, published the design of the jewelry box on social media platforms May 27 the same year. Legal documents also suggest that the Shenzhen firm owns the copyright to the jewelry box design, which is in the shape of a cobblestone.

In August 2016, one of the company’s clients noticed by chance that the medal box for the Rio Olympics looked extremely similar to the jewelry box designed by the Shenzhen jeweler. After making a comparison, the company found that the design of the boxes were very similar in size and even some details were the same.

According to the indictment, the Rio Olympic organizing committee announced the design of the medal box June 14, 2016, more than a year after the jeweler. Therefore, the Shenzhen firm accused the organizing committee of infringement.

Lawyers of the Shenzhen company sent out a letter to the organizing committee in September last year, urging the committee to provide documents and blueprints to prove that the box was their original design.

However, the organizing committee refused to provide any documents and responded by saying that the box’s copyright belonged to them and claiming that they had put forward the origins of the design’s inspiration in a brand booklet for the games in September 2011.

The jeweler held its ground and filed the lawsuit with the court. It demanded 10 million yuan (US$1.45 million) in compensation and required an apology from the organizing committee.

Wu said that the purpose of the lawsuit was not to get compensation but to safeguard the copyright of the company’s intellectual property. “The compensation amount is reasonable based on the international standing and influence of the Rio Olympic organizing committee as well as the adverse impact on our company,” said Wu. (Zhang Qian)