[ Question time: Keith Smith ]
website is a legitimate route to their products because, of course, internet trading is not all bad. It allows legitimate agents and distributors to use the internet as a trading medium. If a brand owner identifies an illegal posting of counterfeit product through one of the many internet trading websites – and there are a couple of well-known websites that are renowned for doing this – then we contact the website owner and request that they remove the offending link. Whilst the website owner invariably acts swiftly to remove the offending links, the controls for adding new and possibly again ‘offending’ links appears to be virtually non-existent. We therefore maintain our programme of web-watch and notification.
ECA T oday: What types of electrical products are
affected by counterfeit and non-compliance? Keith Smith: It is fair to say that any product could fall victim to the counterfeiters. In the field of electrical installation products, miniature circuit breakers, residual current breakers and moulded case circuit breakers are very much targeted by the counterfeiter, as they represent relatively high value and/or high volume markets. They are manufactured to international standards (IEC), thereby presenting a global market for these products. Counterfeiters also target enclosure systems, including distribution boards and consumer units. Wiring accessories such as switches, sockets, fuse connection units, plugs, and adaptors are also targeted products.
ECA T oday: What tactics are manufacturers using to
trade counterfeit products? Keith Smith: BEAMA’s Anti-counterfeiting Working Group has been around for more than 11 years, and in this time we have had a lot of success tracking the trading channels, transport routes and manufacturing locations of many counterfeit products. As a result of that success, it has driven the counterfeiters to deploy new tactics. The first tactic is fragmented manufacturing. Counterfeiters manufacture component parts in different locations and only bring them together very late in the manufacturing cycle. And the very last action to take place would be the labelling of the product. Until the product actually carries its brand name, either by printing, labels or other forms of brand identification, it is not counterfeit and therefore action cannot be taken.
The second tactic is not labelling the product at all. So, in other words, completing the assembly of the product and then shipping the product without any brand name on it. And via separate routing, sending appropriate labels or printing materials to brand the product elsewhere in the supply chain, very often in a different country. The third and final tactic is passing off the brand name.
We have many famous brands whereby the lettering of the brand name is being manipulated very slightly – for example, ‘M’ represented as ‘IVI’ – it is easy to group letters in close proximity to each other so that you would believe you are looking at an ‘M’. We have numerous instances where we have the passing off of a brand name, which has then been registered by the manufacturer, and the authorities cannot take action because they have not registered ‘M’, they have registered ‘IVI’.
July 2012 ECA Today 43
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