10,000 Villages: VW Bug
Does this look familiar? Three separate craft groups working in developing countries around the world designed wonderful products inspired by a VW bug - a wooden model from Tanzania, the ceramic version from Peru, and the wire model from the Congo. All three products were selected by importers at Ten Thousand Villages (TTV), one of the leading fair trade retailers of handcrafts in the U.S. However, the products also attracted the interest of another U.S. business – Volkswagen America (VWA).
As a corporation familiar with Intellectual Property law, VW has certain rights to the design of a model gift "Bug," as it is derived from their design of the actual car. They asked TTV to stop selling the three items.
Light Years IP assisted TTV to negotiate and secure a license from Volkswagen to resume marketing the products from the three countries. The license allowed TTV to market limited quantities of all three artisan interpretations of the VW "bug" car as a toy or gift in the U.S.
