Lotto Sport Italia S.p.A. is an Italian company and a leader in the sports apparel industry in more than 100 countries worldwide. A passion for sport and Italian design have been the character of Lotto Sport Italia since 1973. Today, we are glad to share the exclusive interview with Dr Luca Melzi, Head of Asian Operation – Apparel at Lotto Sport Hong Kong Ltd., to learn more about counterfeiting situation and their efforts to fight the counterfeits in the industry.
The main topics included in this interview are:
1. Details of company operations in Asia
2. Important measures that had been taken by Lotto to hinder rogue third parties IP infringement
3. Countermeasures used by the company to prevent counterfeiting
4. IP threats they face in their business
1) Thank you for your availability and for your time to join us and share the experience! As we all know Lotto Sport is an Italia company, a leader in more than 100 countries worldwide in the production and distribution of clothing and footwear, could you elaborate more about how the company operates?
Yes, my pleasure. Lotto works in several areas in Asia: the apparel and accessories headquarter is in Hong Kong, but the shoes department is in Taiwan. We have establishments and subsidiaries for the production in mainland China, Cambodia and Indonesia. The commercial, marketing and development central office is still in Italy.
2) Understanding IP legal framework and business situations are diverse depending on different jurisdictions, I would like tailor the interview process according to your experience. Analysing luxury brand current situation, I find several concerns in relation to their IPRs protection. As an example, I discover that they have to register their trademarks with both western and Chinese characters to hinder rogue third parties not to use it. What was your experience?
We registered IPRs in China and Hong Kong, for example our “losanga”, the diamond, which is the symbol of our company. We do not register in other countries because we do not consider them as a threat for our business: 80 per cent of our production is in mainland China. We register our trademarks in English and Chinese characters in 2004. Fundamental was the cooperation with Li Ning, one of the biggest Chinese sport brand, which helps us in understanding the Chinese bureaucracy.
3) What measures had your companies taken to hinder rogue third parties not to use the trademarks in China and Hong Kong?
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