Denver's Telluride Foundation Says Brazil Stole Its Logo For '16 Olympic Games

The logo for the '16 Rio Games is "very similar" to that of the Colorado-based Telluride Foundation, but the foundation's "fight to protect its trademarked logo -- a colorful swirl of embracing, dancing figures -- has gotten nowhere" in the four years since it began, according to Jason Blevins of the DENVER POST. The foundation is "not planning to use the community-grant money it collects from sponsors and donors to wage a legal battle" against the IOC, but it is "not going to sit idle." Telluride Exec Dir Paul Major said, "All the responses we've had from the IOC have been dismissive. They are very courteous, as the Swiss can be, but they have been dismissive, basically saying 'Go away.'" Blevins notes the foundation's logo "was created" by Boulder-based design firm Communication Arts and trademarked in '00. Four years later, the "exact logo was used" to promote Carnaval '04 in Salvador, Brazil. Major "sent a letter then asking the city to not use the logo, but said he never heard back." The Rio logo is "three dancing figures," while the Telluride Foundation's logo "has four." But the colors "are similar," and the "arm-locked dancing figures in the Brazilian Olympic mark spell 'Rio'" (DENVER POST, 7/17).