For Silk Street Market in Beijing, the Olympics means a little different.  Two Olympic delegations, Venezuela and Nauru, chose to wear the market's namesake brand for the opening ceremony instead of the dominant Adidas and Nike. 
It takes three years for Silk Street to prove its transition from an IPR troublemaker to a creator and a defender. 

Silk Street had been an easy target for years.  LVMH along with four top designer goods companies eventually sued it in court in September 2005. 

Incessant run-ins prompted the market to retool its operation.  IPR may mean not more than a research paper for a scholar.  But for the management of a market, IPR does not pan out that easily.  The management has to rein in profitable shops under its roof.  Silk Street moved on with weeding out 90 dubious shops, even that meant the market had to look for new tenants to fill the vacancies.  In 2006, a 30 million yuan fund was devoted by the management to cut, exempt or reimburse rents of those vendors standing on the right side of IPR protection, provide credibility warranty for famous brands and promote licensing and franchising of brands. Silk Street strived to repaint its image as culture-rich, fashionable, upscale and creative.

On January 18, 2007, Silk Street awarded 40 vendors performing well in its IPR protection campaign.  Paul Ranjard, who headed the European Union Chamber of Commerce IPR Working Group, delivered the prizes to them and said that the effort of the Silk Street Market in bolstering the protection of intellectual property rights was an encouraging sign.

In preparation for the Olympics, the management frequented compliance checks of shops while making the market more true to its name by building a 100-meter long street dedicated to silk, a silk museum as well as a high-end jewelry exchange center.  The market also launched its namesake brand, which are on eight categories of products, ties including shirts, table cloths and carpets.  Over 100 stalls owned by 80 vendors carry them.  With 19 long honored Chinese brands occupying combined 5,000 square meters of its premises, Silk Street towers over every peer in the nation in this department. 

 (China IP News)