Squaring Off Against Counterfeits

The makers of the counterfeits need to remove the square D logo and get UL/CSA/VDE approval. Then they can sell them and compete with the makers. If there is no CSA/UL/VDE approval, call the police.

Yup!

They are counterfeiters! That is what they do.

Counterfieters are in business to make money by making counterfeits.

Anyone can infringe on a patent. Morse didn't do a good job of it with the telegraph lines and had several different outfits creating their own telegraph system. Because Morse didn't bring action on these counterfeiter companies there was nothing he could do about it to enforce the patents once the first counterfeiter was allowed to get away with it.

The companies will continue to do so because it is up to the patent holder to prove continued interest in the patent and bring action against anyone infringing.

Standard Oil did a pretty good job enforcing the patents on petroleum products as long as everything was taking place in the Eastern United States. When different oil companies started popping up on the Western side of the country, it became difficult for Standard Oil to enforce its patents and allowed a company to continue operation. Once that took place Standard Oil could no longer enforce its patents.

Part of the SquareD lawsuits happened near me. These Counterfeit Breakers were found at one of the oldest electrical supply houses in my area.

Not much thought on how they entered the chain, but I would expect the secondary market, which is alive and well in the USA. By secondary, I mean liquidated goods, and there are plenty around (this is my secondary source of income and a hedge for retirement). I find electrical items, pumps, valves, fittings, and you name it coming up. Right now, due to a bankruptcy in SE USA, 4M worth of goods are being liquidated for about 30%. My cohorts and I, who subscribe to a newsletter, get manifests, traceability, and are assured they are the real thing.

Manufacturers and distributors supply this stuff to us (a lot of time it is for export only, but product is staged around the world effectively overcoming the export clause)

So, to get to the point after this ramble, 1) How can we be assured it is counterfeit (onus on the opposite hand) and 2) What about accounting, who looks at the bottom line and does not care where an item came from, or liquidate goods for positive cash flow, allowing them in this chain, and oft times buying the item back at a distressed price.

After many years of buying and selling liquidated goods, I believe that at any time more liquidated goods are on the market than prime ones.

There is a lot of truth in that. genuine goods are ordered for a purpose and then consumed as the makers want to minimize inventory at factory and in distributors warehouses for max inventory turns/year. The big volumes are drop shipped to end users. Distributors serve the small markets for repairs and replacement.

Surplus buyers buy stuff as tax writeoffs to get it offsite to realize the tax write off.

(IRS in the USA requires written off material to be gone from the inventory, other countries allow writeoff inventory to remain and if you later sell/use it, to report the income...this make the US surplus market far larger than any other country).

Then they have to find a buyer. Best buyer is a distributor that allows them to stream them into sales a genuin parts. Salesmen police the inventory at distributers as they lose commission on these surplus parts. Most distrbution companies usually keep their surplus in a separate shelf area for this reason as they have agreed not to buy this stuff off the surplus market in their disty agreement.

... Salesmen police the inventory... LOL, QC by a salesman.

They are the first line of defence against faked product in the channel. They can spot a fake a lot better than you or me.

It is not QC, it is detection, as clones would not pass a true line QC method

Since we engineers are the ones that often specify what is purchased let us be vigilant! I agree with the above comments and would like to add, lets support legitimate designer/manufacturers that are strictly on the up and up.