Please view this month's Member Spotlights!

We thank all of the participants for contributing and sharing their expertise with us. Member companies are randomly chosen each month to participate as a way to connect and educate our member community. To view our previous member spotlights, click here. 

Wendy Yu

Sinofaith IP Group

IP Director

Guangzhou, China

What are the top 2 challenges in IP enforcement you see affecting your industry over the next year? 

1) More counterfeits circulated online. With the rapid development of e-commerce, more counterfeit products are sold via the Internet. Due to the improvement of craft of counterfeits, virtual info of sellers and logistics etc., it increases the challenge for the brands to identify and locate the infringers.

2) More difficulty in investigation and evidence collection. Infringers’ complicated labor division respectively in production, distribution and sales brings challenge to investigation. While sales via popular promotion activities like "live streaming sales" is quite short period from counterfeits discovery to takedown resulting not enough time to proceed investigation and evidence collection.

What are your top 2 recommendations to a brand that is building up its IP enforcement program? 

1) Establish a complete IP protection system - To positively apply for relevant protection rights in advance will be more efficient than passively defend infringement after being infringed. Meanwhile to establish a strong IP protection team to respond quickly when there is any infringement.
2) Protect key products and key markets - To crack down the infringers seriously and create strong deterrence in the market; To set priority and take protections to ensure the company’s key products and business will not be affected by infringement and counterfeits etc.

What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

Win-win thinking. In our work, high performance is largely achieved through the collaboration of two or more people. Win-win thinking is based on this idea. During the interactions with other people, we need to think what we can bring and how we could help, looking for a solution of mutual benefit.

Contact info: wenjuan.yu@sinofaith-ip.com 

Jon Merricks

VF Corp

How can companies use customer feedback to enhance its brand protection program?

Consumer education – informing customers about counterfeiting and equipping them with tools to avoid being duped by counterfeiting – is very important. Taking it a step further, consumer education is also reciprocal, as brands gather valuable information from consumers about behaviors, trends and criteria that influence why and where consumers make purchases, from certain platforms or areas.

What’s one piece of advice you can give an SME looking to enforce their IP?

Know as much about your products and company as possible. Visit factories, distributions centers, stores, etc…. Integrate yourself into as many areas of your company as possible and leverage all of the information you collect to build your enforcement strategies.

What hobbies or causes are you passionate about?

I love being in the outdoors and especially near or on water. Working for a company that champions outdoor exploration aligns perfectly with my natural desire to discover new places and connect with interesting people, along the way.

Christina Rios Alataris 

Western Digital®

What’s one piece of advice you can give a brand looking to enforce their IP?

Think ahead about key performance indicators (KPIs) for your programs and invest in tools to capture and organize your data. Whether you are responsible for brand protection in large or small organizations, you will need to make decisions about how to prioritize your budget. Capturing and using data to support your KPIs not only gives you valuable operational insight but allows you to determine where to marshal your budget where there is critical need. It also arms you with tools to explain the value of your brand protection efforts to internal stakeholders who will support your team’s work and budget.

What 2 things contribute to a successful brand protection program?

Moving toward a more holistic understanding of your brand protection programs allows you to approach them programmatically. A programmatic approach allows you to be more proactive in the way you solve problems, rather than dealing with issues reactively. It is difficult to get on top of problems without building proactive programs. Additionally, the nature of brand protection problems morphs quickly and you need to constantly look at your programs to understand if they are still effective. If not, make changes even if you are not sure they will work. You will gain valuable information from evaluating and implementing new approaches.

What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

I had a law professor who advised his students to pause once a year to think about whether you are still learning and developing in the direction you want in your career. If you are, then keep doing what you are doing with energy and enjoy the ride, even if challenges are steep. If not, ask yourself what needs to change and what you can do about it. This does not necessarily mean that you need a new opportunity, but that you understand how you can change your situation and don’t be afraid to pursue the changes you need.

The IACC would like to welcome our new members!

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