(via Ricardo Lagos) The story of Prada is an interesting one. The company is owned by Miuccia Prada who is also the chief designer. In 1978 when Prada was a relatively small designer label, in good Southern Italian fashion, another company started making knock-offs of Prada bag designs. At a trade fair Miuccia Prada bumped into the owner of the copycat firm and "harangued him ... for allegedly copying some of her bag designs." So: big expensive lawsuit against her rival Patrizio Bertelli? Apparently not. The two got married and combined her design sense with his manufacturing ability and made Prada into the multi-billion business it is today. If IP lawsuits are a form of business warfare, I suppose the moral of the story is "Make love not war."