Battling Brand Pirates

The ITT name is coveted by counterfeiters who illegally put it on products from TVs to toasters. You can help protect our brand by reporting unauthorized uses.

It's identity theft on a grand scale.Around the world, clever thieves are trying to trade on ITT's good name by stamping the less used -- but still remembered -- ITT "tabletop" logo on TVs, toasters, phones and any number of other consumer goods.

Like the counterfeiters who make fake Gucci bags and Rolex watches, they know the value of a strong name.

"One of a company's most valuable assets is its name," says Tom Blasey, assistant general counsel and chief intellectual property counsel for ITT and one of the people on the front lines in the fight against these brand pirates. "We don't use this logo extensively anymore, but the logo clearly uses the letters 'ITT' and is still associated with us. If we don't keep control over our name and our mark, we run the risk of other people weakening our reputation."

Seizing 10,000 "ITT" TVs

Blasey, along with Wolfgang Esser, ITT's intellectual property attorney in Weinstadt, Germany, recently stopped the shipment of 10,000 "ITT" television sets into Europe. Like an international episode of Law & Order, this scam involved crooks in New York, Spain and Turkey, and crimefighters -- in the form of Blasey and Esser -- from Virginia and Germany.

Not every case is as knotty as the Turkish TV incident, but ITT deals with a steady diet of trademark disputes. This is in large part because the old ITT conglomerate had a hand in so many businesses, from snack foods and rental cars to household consumer goods. People around the world know the name and associate it with high quality, but aren’t always exactly sure what the company does, making it an attractive name to hijack.

To compound the problem, some would-be counterfeiters mistakenly assume that the ITT trademark "died" when the old ITT split into three companies in 1995 and that no one will care if they use the name for their products. But the trademark is actually very much alive -- and owned by the ITT you work for today.

Maintaining Control Over the Mark

"To retain control over the trademark, you have to show that it is being used. We recently entered into a trademark license agreement with a reputable German consumer electronics dicstributor to show that we are still using this mark for these types of products," says Esser.

This limited, controlled usage gives ITT the upper hand in battling brand counterfeiters. When the company does uncover trademark infringement, it sends a cease-and-desist letter. If that doesn't deter the violators, ITT takes the cases to the courts or customs authorities as appropriate. With no questions about trademark ownership, the courts can act quickly, like they did with the Turkish TVs, which were seized by customs authorities before any products were able to reach the retail distribution chain.

ITT lawyers are on the lookout for violations, and there are outside trademark services monitoring the web and trademark office databases for companies that market themselves as ITT. Employees, too, can assist the effort by becoming "brand cops."

"Many violations are discovered by employees who see the ITT logo on a non-ITT product," says Blasey. "Through the years, we have all helped to create ITT's worldwide reputation and build goodwill in the brand, so it’s incumbent on all of us to protect our brand by reporting any unauthorized uses."