On 20 December 2015 the Corriere della Sera, the most circulated and authoritative Italian daily newspaper, gave ample emphasis on the legal battles faced by the designer and entrepreneur Raffaele Iannello to protect his creations from counterfeits. The opening title recites: “The designer held hostage by counterfeiters: «I have no protection, I risk bankruptcy»”. The article by journalist Elisabetta Andreis gives a detailed description of the enormous costs and several difficulties that the designer was forced to face for years in order to protect his name and to try fighting international companies which got rich at his expense, marketing counterfeit low-quality products which are often even dangerous to the health of the end consumer. His most copied product was the Voodoo / The Exknife set, subject of multiple international arbitrations and appeal lawsuits, all won by the entrepreneur-designer.
Besides the print version, this article was also published (in an abbreviated form) on the newspaper’s online version. A few weeks later, a similar article was published by the Italian weekly magazine Gente.
It should be specified that after all these journalistic services, dating back years ago, the situation has improved slightly… new legal proceedings have in the meantime ended (all obviously in favor of the designer) and this caused a drastic fall in the presence of illegal products on the market.