By Dana Thomas
TODAY
updated 9:38 a.m. ET, Fri., Jan. 9, 2009
Every time I give a talk on the luxury business today and I get to the subject of counterfeiting, the same thing happens. The room grows absolutely silent as I put forth the facts: It is estimated that up to 7 percent of our annual world trade - $600 billion worth - is counterfeit or pirated; that fakes are believed to be directly responsible for the loss of more than 750,000 American jobs; that everything from baby formula to medicine is counterfeited, with tragic results; that counterfeiters and the crime syndicates they work with deal in human trafficking, child labor and gang warfare; and that counterfeiting is used to launder money, and the money has been linked to truly sinister deeds such as terrorism.

No one utters a word, not a sound, as I recall the raid I went on with chinese police in a tenement in Guangzhou and what we discovered when we walked in: two dozen sad, tired, dirty children, ages 8 to 14, making fake Dunhill, Versace and Hugo Boss handbags on old, rusty sewing machines. It was like something out of Dickens, "Oliver Twist"in the 21st century.

Based upon the clipped article said above, a conservative figure of total annual lost in counterfeit goods worldwide was no less than $42Billion (7% of 600Billion) which is covering all kinds of luxury products e.g., clothes, all wearable with hand-gripped stuffs, electronics and etc….. Among, it is believed the deluxe personally portable items such as bags, clothes, watches would be over 20% of $42B and that means 8+Billion US Dollars, even under super tightly seized but the counterfeit items were still not so effectively prevented. One obvious reason, there was no one single way is easily used to identify Real vs Counterfeit visibly.

Spent a long time, we found all raw material with handed-craft plus artwork, the counterfeit item could be made as same as Real one, even a professional inspector may not be able to distinguish. Ergo, unless there is one special accessory could be easily identified and way of effectively not necessary has to be identified by professional inspector, the reason is inspector who may not be accompanying with each customer, even so, the professional sales may not be able to identify. On the other hand, however, if the item could be easily distinguished by customer themselves then the counterfeit goods could be decreased dramatically. The question is how/what is the best way to make its happened.

Yes, thinking, We finally focus on the Zipper as it is used for each luxury item of bag for instance, until "ID.zip" appeared it will be different, which is a kind hi-tech/special techniques for the metal Zipper (Zinc alloy) combining Metallurgy, EDM, Molding, Injection, zipper design with Electro-plating for the all teeth shaped in English Alpha-Beta letter or symbol which is an unique zipper with both patent and techniques. While you buy those items with ID.zip, you can easily distinguish the Real one for sure. ID.zip is easily visible, scenario is Fashion-loved-ladies always like to show up luxury item e.g. bags which would be also telling all participants in party she has gripped a fake if bags can't showing that unique zipper !!!!