Feature By Sara-Jayne Clover

Coca-: ensuring that it’s always the real thing

Iconic bottles, secret recipes, billion-dollar brands – catching the eye of Coca-Cola. Her experiences at the beverage giant they are all in a day’s work when you head up the IP have proved all that she hoped for and more: “It’s literally a dream job to work for this brand and for this company; sometimes I pinch team at The Coca-Cola Company. Danise Lopes reveals myself,” she enthuses. In 2008, after several years in London looking how she manages the IP challenges, and more, for the after the company’s European trademark practice, Lopes moved to world’s biggest beverage provider the Atlanta headquarters to head up the global trademark team. However, in 2010 Coca-Cola decided to restructure its IP function and consolidate the trademark and patent departments, which until then had operated as separate divisions. Lopes was anointed the If one were to speculate as to the second most widely understood new head of intellectual property, a role which she has embraced term in the world, after the ubiquitous ‘OK’, one might perhaps be with gusto – although it has not been without its challenges. tempted to take a guess at likely candidates such as ‘yes’, or perhaps “I won’t lie to you – it’s not been a walk in the park,” she concedes. ‘hi’. In fact, however, this honour belongs not to a word at all, but to “When you have a trademark background and you then have to a brand: the mighty Coca-Cola. start dealing with highly technical patent specifications and other Invented in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton, Coca- patent filing issues, you have to the ground running, so I spent Cola quickly established itself as a global phenomenon and has a lot of time with my patent counsel in the early days in this role never looked back. Over the years the company has expanded its to get me up to speed.” As well as drawing on the experience of portfolio of beverages to include, among many others, , colleagues, Lopes was able to avail of a formal company-wide and the world’s favourite diet drink, . Fast forward to 2012 education programme which offers a vast number of courses, and Coca-Cola products are available in more than 200 countries including modules on IP law and practice – from ‘Trademarks 101’ worldwide, with 1.8 billion units consumed daily. The organisation to very detailed technical patent training. Despite all the hard graft behind the success of these products is, of course, The Cola-Cola that uniting the teams has involved, Lopes is adamant that the move Company, a Fortune 100 business which reported profits of $2.31 was a shrewd one, giving the company a truly 360-degree view of IP billion in the third quarter of 2012. matters. “When you launch a new product, you look at a myriad of Underpinning this global supremacy is an indomitable brand possible IP issues. If you take the Coca-Cola product, for example, we identity: in 2012 the Coca-Cola brand topped Interbrand’s Best had a patent on the bottle, we have design and trademark protection Global Brands list for the 13th consecutive year, valued at an eye- watering $77.8 billion. Leading the team responsible for safeguarding this precious asset is head of intellectual property Danise Lopes. Originally from South Africa, Lopes qualified as a lawyer and worked in private practice in her home country before upping sticks for the United Kingdom, where she continued to focus on trademark issues. She then made the move in-house, taking up a position with multinational consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser. Here she witnessed first hand the interplay between business and intellectual property, and was instantly converted. “Being in-house, you are able to see the whole line of project development and are involved at every stage, and I love that,” explains Lopes. “In private practice, you’re not involved until the end of the process and you are not necessarily in tune with the business goals – only the legal risks.”

IP united Committed to this new career path, Lopes swiftly ascended the Danise Lopes, ranks to become head of trademarks at Reckitt Benckiser, before head of intellectual property

10 World Trademark Review February/March 2013 www.WorldTrademarkReview.com for the bottle, trademark protection on the COCA-COLA mark and, in IP law is a full-time job for any practitioner. When you happen of course, trade secret protection for the formula. There is so much to head up the IP division of a multinational with more than 500 synergy between trademarks, marketing patents and innovation that brands (not to mention 45,000 trademarks), you need a bright, it makes sense for it all to be under the same leadership.” committed team of people around you – and around the world – to stay on top of things. Fortunately, Lopes has just that. IP attorneys Copy Cokes are based in the company’s Atlanta headquarters and internationally The bottle to which Lopes refers is the classic hourglass ‘contour’ in corporate offices, and it is a vital part of her job to ensure that shape designed by Indiana’s Root Glass Company in 1916. Tasked communication channels are clear and best practices are shared with creating a bottle that could be easily distinguished from regularly. During weekly team calls, counsel from all corners of the others, even in the dark, the company came up with something globe report on the latest local IP developments and outline their so distinctive that it fast achieved iconic status – most famously potential implications for Coca-Cola. As an international organisation celebrated in Andy Warhol’s Pop Art series of paintings in the 1960s. from its early days, Coca-Cola has long had the right structures in But with fame come imitators, and it is the job of Lopes and her place to ensure that this process can run smoothly. “Keeping our team to ensure that their star design enjoys bulletproof protection. central team in Atlanta connected with the international teams is “When it comes to protecting our intellectual property, we like essential,” states Lopes, “and it’s something we’ve been doing for a to have as many arrows in our quiver as possible,” she explains. number of years, so it’s a very well-oiled machine.” This means that as well as design rights, the bottle is also covered Lopes also encourages her teams to connect in person as often as by trademark protection wherever possible. “The Coca-Cola contour time and distance permit. “Even in this electronic age, when you can glass bottle has been registered in a very large number of countries, do video calls, face-to-face contact is still critical,” she observes. And but 3D registration is still very much in its infancy compared to how these efforts to forge strong lines of communication also extend long trademark protection has been around,” continues Lopes. “In a to those external partners who assist in protecting Coca-Cola’s number of countries, little to no case law surrounding 3D trademark intellectual property. At the annual meeting of the International protection exists. But we have been successful in many countries Trademark Association, Lopes and her team get together with and in some cases we have been the first company to secure this outside counsel from more than 200 countries to update them on protection.” For instance, in 2008 Coca-Cola was the first company to all of Coca-Cola’s latest IP issues and get the lie of the land from successfully obtain 3D trademark protection for a container in Japan. their respective jurisdictions. However, even with such a daunting armoury in place, The criteria followed when selecting outside counsel can differ infringement is still an inevitability for a brand of Coca-Cola’s dramatically, depending on location, explains Lopes: “We practise stature. When this happens, Lopes and her team confer with their in many countries where there are so many big law firms to choose colleagues and evaluate each instance on its individual merits from; but then there are other countries in which we operate where before deciding what course of action to take. “We work very closely there is only one trademark firm and it works not only for you, but with our outside counsel, as well as the Coca-Cola IP counsel in the also for your competitors.” But what all of Coca-Cola’s counsel share various business groups, to decide whether we’re going to pursue is a dedication to working at the cutting edge of the law and a clear someone through litigation or through negotiation,” she explains understanding of the company’s specific requirements: “The large And just as it will not tolerate infringement of its own intellectual pool of diverse outside counsel that we work with are all trained in property, Coca-Cola takes pains to respect the rights of others. our needs, business goals and fundamental processes.” “It goes both ways,” continues Lopes. “The Coca-Cola Company has a policy not knowingly to infringe upon the rights of others, The Coke challenge and when others infringe our marks we consider all the possible Indeed, this international scope of her role is something that Lopes remedies. Sometimes we do take action; sometimes we settle particularly enjoys. “That’s one of the fascinating aspects of my job,” matters and sometimes we don’t – it depends on the circumstances.” she says. “Our legal team has to be very fluid and move in real time, in accordance with the business needs and goals,” she explains. I’d like to buy the world a Coke “We keep up with what is going on not only in the US courts, but Keeping abreast of infringement trends and wider developments also the Chinese courts, UK courts, and so on. We are continually

60-second interview

What aspects of your job do you and being exposed to so many day and age, with all the someone else recently and I find the most challenging? cultures is truly incredible. electronic capabilities we have was totally stumped. I couldn’t I wouldn’t describe my job as available, we still encounter think of anything else I would challenging – I would describe Who has been the greatest many registries where you like to be doing. But I’ve had it as having great variety. influence on your career to date? have to do paper searching. some more time to think since The person who has most Seeing all manual searches then. My little boy has just What aspects do you find inspired me is Sheila Henderson, move to electronic would be started kindergarten and I have most rewarding? head of intellectual property at so beneficial, in terms of both been truly inspired by how This is a dream job: I’m working Richemont, London. She has timing and cost. these kids grow and develop for the world’s greatest brand. been a great role model. and learn – they are like little And to see my staff excited What career do you think sponges soaking up every new and honoured to work for the If you could make one change to you would have followed if not fact! So, if I had to do anything company is just fantastic. Also, the industry, what would it be? the law? other than IP law, it would have working in many countries I would say that even in this I was asked this question by to be something in education.

www.WorldTrademarkReview.com February/March 2013 World Trademark Review 11 Feature: Inside Track Coca-Cola facts

Created in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton. working with local counsel and the business units to ensure that 1.8 billion Coca-Cola products are we are giving the most comprehensive and well-thought-out legal advice.” But she acknowledges that operating on such an expansive consumed every day. geographical scale can be a tough proposition. “When you work on both the global and local level, you have so many issues arise and no two days are ever the same; it keeps you on your toes.” One particular challenge is rolling out the brand in a new The secret recipe is a trade secret territory – especially one with a different language. Ensuring that which was formerly held in the the carefully constructed brand message is not lost or damaged in translation is not easy, and has proved the undoing of many vaults of the SunTrust Bank in other companies. Exhaustive research, scrupulous planning and meticulous organisation are the keys to avoiding these pitfalls, Atlanta and now resides in a suggests Lopes: “We don’t just ask our outside counsel to clear the mark and make sure there’s no infringement. It’s important to permanent display at the World of us that the brand is culturally relevant and we make sure that it Coca-Cola. doesn’t translate into something inappropriate.” Lopes also has her work cut out to safeguard the integrity of the Coca-Cola brand in the online sphere. “The proliferation of electronic and social media and the challenges they present are the biggest The Coca-Cola Company’s oldest changes I’ve seen since the start of my career,” she states. “When I started practising, we barely had the Internet. Before social media, trademark is not for Coca-Cola, correspondence between a brand owner and an infringer was largely but for Apollinaris, a German private until a court action was filed. With social media, enforcement efforts are often public and the interactive and quickly changing mineral water acquired by Coca- nature of social media platforms requires brand lawyers to think and act quickly – often in creative, non-lawyerly ways – to protect the Cola in 2006, which has trademark brand without at the same time disengaging the brand’s fans.” That is no easy task in today’s online environment, where the protection dating back to 1885. slightest false move can result in a gripe site springing up against a brand. One avenue through which many companies are seeking to ramp up protection in cyberspace is through the new generic top- The term ‘Coca-Cola’ is trademarked level domains (gTLDs). As yet, however, there are no plans for ‘.coca- cola’; while the company has been considering whether to apply, it in plain block capitals, but also in has kept its powder dry thus far. “We are constantly looking for ways to engage with our consumers online and have evaluated the gTLD the distinctive Spencarian script and programme for any new opportunities it may provide, while at the same time assessing how best to protect our trademarks, which other formats. are among our most valuable assets,” states Lopes. “It will clearly be a number of years before the next round of applications will be accepted, and in the meantime we are watching the process and will The company’s brand value is evaluate the possibility once we see what, if any, benefit is to be had from owning a branded TLD.” estimated at $77.8 billion. When a conclusion is reached, it will most certainly have been through a democratic process, she explains: “The decision would be made by a number of key stakeholders within the company.” The Cola-Cola Company has in Inspiring a generation excess of 500 brands and 45,000 Indeed, Lopes considers such broad consultation with all stakeholders crucial to any successful IP operation: “An open line of trademarks. communication with the business is essential. I’ve seen in the past that if you don’t have this communication, your IP strategy can be warped and seriously misaligned with the rest of the business. Also, it is vital to get your IP team involved very early on in order to mitigate risks and steer away from problems.” One example of this is the effort that goes in to sponsorship preparations. The Coca-Cola IP teams work diligently behind the scenes before major sporting events to minimise the heightened risk of infringement. “A spike in infringement is not specific to the Olympics – every time there’s a FIFA World Cup or European Cup, the same thing happens,” explains Lopes. “It is part of our daily job whenever these events come up. That is why we work so hard before the event to make sure we have all the necessary processes in place

12 World Trademark Review February/March 2013 www.WorldTrademarkReview.com Iconic status

“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the president drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, to prevent what we can, and then deal with anything unpreventable and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no as efficiently as possible.” The processes to which Lopes refers are amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on put in place by a dedicated legal taskforce that prepares large-scale the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes legal clearances and has tools at its disposal which allow it to act are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows at the first sign of trademark infringement, counterfeiting or any it, and you know it.” Andy Warhol. other legal issue that might ordinarily be associated with such high- profile events. The Coca-Cola Company is the longest-standing sponsor of the Olympic Games, an arrangement that dates back to 1928. In marketing campaign. Currently, Coca-Cola supports more than 250 recent years, however, it has come under fire from some factions physical activity and nutritional education initiatives in over 100 which argue that there is a disconnect between these celebrations countries, and has undertaken to have a programme in place in of athleticism and endurance and the high-calorie, low-nutrient every country in which it operates by 2015. products of their sponsor. Coca-Cola has done its best to refute such claims, stating that it is committed to using the appeal of its Preserving the legacy brand to make a positive difference in the countries where it is sold. There are evidently many issues at play when running the IP team Lopes further corrects the assumption that Coca-Cola was fuelling of the world’s biggest brand, and despite her assured management Olympic visitors exclusively with high-sugar drinks: “As the world’s of an effective, united IP team, Lopes is wary of complacency. “I largest beverage company, we take seriously that people want a think it is dangerous to assume that you have been very successful, variety of beverages and packaging options to meet their needs and I’m reluctant to sit back on my laurels and think that all the and lifestyles,” she states. “During the London Olympic Games, work is done,” she explains. The importance of intellectual property we offered the widest range of drinks and sizes ever offered at an is crystal clear to all at Coca-Cola, and Lopes is well aware that it is Olympic and Paralympic Games: 73% of what we sold at Olympic now her responsibility to continue building on the foundations laid venues was water, juice and low/no-calorie beverages.” by the company’s founders: “The founding fathers of The Coca-Cola On top of this, Coca-Cola made a concerted effort at the 2012 Company had a great awareness of the value of intellectual property games to engage with its younger audience and inspire them and knew that they had created something that needed protecting.” to partake in sporting activity through its “Move to the ” And protect it, Lopes shall. WTR

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