Icon Motosports Brand Protection
Icon Motosports rideicon.com is an American manufacturer of motorcycle helmets and motorcycle gear based in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 2002, it entered the market as the first moto gear brand to specialize in technology and designs specifically for urban riders. It is part of the world's largest motorcycle corporation, LeMans, which owns many production manufactures, brands and patents. Through LeMans, Icon has access to advanced original technologies and materials.
We’ve been Icon dealers since 2010 and have enough knowledge about this manufacturer's products. This article provides information about the originality and protections that the brand uses.
Icon brand protection
It is impossible to massively fake Icon Motosports products due to “deep” branding, unique technologies of applying graphics and textures, the use of branding materials, and continuous updating of the range of products.
"Deep" branding
All Icon products have parts with an integrated logo. Unlike stickers or embroidery, such elements require setting up separate production lines and large circulations to achieve an reasonable prime cost. Also, such branding is often difficult to produce due to the high precision machining and unique materials.
Structural parts with a molded logo on the body are used on motorcycle helmets and visors. To accurately fake such parts, you need an original injection mold.
Motorcycle jackets feature branded zipper pulls, zippers, drawstrings, external sliders in the form of the Icon logo, complex tailoring and embossing.
Motorcycle gloves use detailed emblems, sliders, molded rubber on the clamps, and molded hard knuckle protection.
Motorcycle boots have the logo embedded in the sole, zippers, textile or leather base. Invisible branding is used on the tongues in the form of complex leather dressing.
Below are some examples of "deep branding" on Icon helmets, jackets, gloves and boots.
Unique coating and graphics
Some Icon helmets feature unique graphics and textures that no one else has in the industry. Technologies for such mass coating are complex and inaccessible to unlicensed production.
Asymmetrical multi-color and multi-layered patterns with texture are used on helmets, in matte and glossy designs using glitter, rubaton, metallic, hi-vis and fluorescent paints and coatings.
There are integrated acoustic textures for sound insulation in the form of a convex mesh in the shape of a comb or circle, which are applied to the smooth surface of the helmet shell and covered with paint and varnish.
Original materials and technologies
Icon develops the materials and technologies for their products themselves, but also uses raw materials and systems from well-known manufacturers. Such materials are easy to distinguish by the applied logos and by touch: they are all very different from analogues and no-name fakes.
Icon is one of the first to have access to original materials and technologies through Lemans.
The world's best D3O protection, antibacterial lining of motorcycle helmets HydraDry, Cordura or Covec denim fabric, MIPS brain protection system in motorcycle helmets, FogFree anti-fog coating and Pinlock inserts on shields, BOA quick boot lacing system, eVent and Goretex waterproof membranes, Iron Wave high-strength textiles, Hycore, Kevlar, Ax Materials, TechTuf and many others.
Collections renewals
Icon Motosports release new products twice a year (spring-summer and fall-winter collections) and, accordingly, remove old items from the range. You can check out new items in the current catalog: https://rideicon.com/dealer-catalog
Only popular products in basic colors can stay for several years, but Icon changes the package and name anyway.
For example, a basic black matte helmet "Rubatone" after a couple of seasons was equipped with an additional black visor and accessories, and was released under the new name "Dark", in a new box, with a new part number.
It is difficult to keep up with the renewal of the assortment, so a fake cannot be up-to-date and will always be far behind the current Icon Motosports catalog.
Documentation
All Icon products carry mandatory labels with safety standards, size, components and care in multiple languages. Helmets, jackets, gloves, pants, boots and motorcycle gear come with user manuals in different languages.
There are also numerous labels with technologies that are used on a particular model, and warnings for use.
All this significantly complicates the faking process and increases the cost of the final product.
How to spot a fake?
It is very easy to identify a fake: just compare it with the photo of the product on our website or the official website rideicon.com. You will immediately see the difference in logos, textures and materials if you look closely.
If you can touch the item, you should pay attention to the labels: manuals, safety standards, components, washing rules, size.
The only fake that we know about, and the photo of which you can see online, is the old model of Pursuit gloves. They have the Icon logo and labels, but they have differently tailored fingers and different leather. This fake appeared years after the original model was withdrawn from the production.
The only fake product we know about.
There are Chinese replicas of shields and helmet's accessories on the market, but they are not fakes, since they do not have Icon logos and the sellers do not claim that they are originals.
Also, there are no-name analogues of the old model of Victory Riding motorcycle jeans and Pursuit gloves on the Chinese market, which do not have a logo and are not sold as the original.
Are there detective products at low prices?
Lemans regulations are the same for all brands of the corporation: defects are destroyed, customers get their money back. If we get a defective product, we destroy it, send a photo to the manufacturer and get a refund. There is no point for dealers to sell defective products at a discount since they can get a refund and buy new ones.
There is not and cannot be a range of Lemas brand defective products, including Icon motosports.
Over many years of working with Lemans, we remember only one revocable company regarding Alliance GT motorcycle helmets, which may have had a problem with buckling chin straps. All dealers were given the serial numbers of helmets supplied during a certain period; the helmets were destroyed; the dealers got their money back.
Isolated cases of defects, as a rule, are resolved individually, but there is always the option of getting the money back after destroying the product.
Conclusions
1) There is not and cannot be a wide range of fakes for Icon products. Only some positions can be copied so that their general look didn’t differ in photos, but if you examine closer, you’ll see the difference. Most products cannot be copied for technological reasons.
2) A possible fake will always be from past collections and will not match the current Icon catalog.
3) Defective goods purchasing or reselling is impossible. The defective products are destroyed by both the manufacturer and dealers.
