Organisers of the Beijing Olympics have been hit by a lawsuit from a city resident who claims they violated his intellectual property rights by failing to give him credit for the event’s official ­slogan, “One World, One Dream”.

The case threatens to become a serious embarrassment for the Beijing organising committee (Bocog), which has repeatedly stressed its commitment to protecting intellectual property and has hailed its two-year-old slogan as symbolising the “Olympic spirit of unity”.