have resulted in a fire and fatalities. I could say the same for residual current devices, which are installed primarily for the protection of personnel. They are installed to protect people and property from the risk associated with earth leakage faults, including electrocution. So you can imagine the consequences of omitting key components. Often, certain materials are cut down, such as the amount of copper used inside things like wiring accessories, where a good contact is essential. If there was an electric fire or a heavy load being plugged into that socket outlet then, once again, the consequences of inferior or insufficient materials could be a fire.
ECA T Most customers don’t take the time to actually study
every letter of product branding. They very often trust the colour, the typeface or the brand marking around the particular brand. We have numerous examples when counterfeiters have used a totally different set of letters, but represented them in the typeface, colour and size of a well-known brand. To an unsuspecting customer, it is very easy to ‘pass off’ as the original brand. This doesn’t stop at the products. Packaging can be passed off as a well-known brand too.
ECA T
There is a lot of incredible work involved in our anti- counterfeit and non-compliance initiatives, and I urge everyone to help us continue the fight
44 ECA Today July 2012
oday: What kinds of safety horror stories have you come across through inspecting ‘passed off’ products? Keith Smith: The type of products that we are talking about here are products that are purchased and installed to provide control and protection to electrical installations from overload, short circuits and earth leakage faults. These particular faults, if not detected, can result in fire and in the loss of life, if the product doesn’t perform to the required specification. We have examples of numerous circuit protection products where components essential for operation have been intentionally missed out of the assembly. To make matters worse, externally the product looks absolutely perfect. We also have examples where weighting has been added, so if you look at the outside of the product and then you were to compare the weight of the originals to the counterfeit, they would be identical. All of the mould marks would be identical, all of the lettering, terminals, everything, would be perfect externally. In one extreme counterfeit breaker case, we found that the majority of components were missing and, whilst electricity could pass through the device, it had absolutely no functionality because the tripping elements were all missing. The consequence of installing this breaker is that it had no means to detect an overcurrent or a short circuit and could
oday: What actions do brand owners need to take to protect their own brand? Keith Smith: The first thing a brand owner needs to do is register their brand name, brand marks and other brand representations in all of the markets where they intend to trade their products. It is not unknown for a brand owner to start trading in another country, only to find that someone else actually owns their brand name in that country. Having taken appropriate action to register their intellectual property, if they later discover infringements, they can then take direct action through their own legal representatives, or act collectively with other ‘like-minded’ brand owners, as in the case of the BEAMA Anti- counterfeit Working Group.
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oday: What should contractors be aware of when making purchases? If the product has security measures such as certificates and holograms, is that enough? Keith Smith: If the contactor has any concerns about a product not being the original, or maybe the price gives rise to suspicion, ask for proof of compliance – such as a certificate of conformance to verify compliance with the appropriate product standards. That said, there is also a market in counterfeit certifications, so you need to verify the certificate with the certification issuing body. There are many security measures that manufacturers have introduced over the years, most of which the counterfeiters have quickly copied. These include date stamps, special stickers, approval marks and even holograms. By far the biggest deterrent to the counterfeiter is when a manufacturer moulds their brand name or mark into the product housing, as action can be taken to seize and confiscate both counterfeit products and associated tooling when the offending counterfeiter is found. We have to stay one step ahead of the counterfeiter. Manufacturers have moved onto newer anti-counterfeiting technologies, such as DNA impregnation within moulding materials and unique individual product markings, as opposed to a batch serial numbering. It says it all when we see that the market for anti-counterfeiting marking and surveillance equipment is a massive market in itself.
ECA T oday: Tell us about the ‘Electrical Installation
Industry Charter’. Who is involved and what is its aim? Keith Smith: The Industry Charter was launched about eight years ago with BEAMA and the EDA. It is a commitment by industry bodies to work together to fight both counterfeit and non-compliant products. We now
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