Pumps and Systems, February 2007

In China, police raid a remote warehouse basement and seize more than 300 million pirated DVDs. In India, sellers in outdoor bazaars daily offer knockoffs of Gucci handbags and Rolex watches starting at about $1 apiece. Malaysia launches a crackdown on counterfeit computer software, at a time when officials estimate that almost two-thirds of that country's software is pirated, compared to a rate of about one-third worldwide. Even fake Viagra is sold in overseas bazaars.

A far less visible, but very real, practice is the reverse engineering and trademark infringement of industrial products such as pumps, a problem that not only robs manufacturers of revenue, but can create hazards when substandard equipment is unknowingly used in the field.

"Right now, the worst area for knockoff products is probably China," says Brian Carpenter, director of marketing for Fairchild Industrial Products Company, with headquarters in Winston-Salem, NC. "In India, by contrast, companies are very busy due to some political changes that are making the country a lot more business-friendly, but the economy is booming so fast that manufacturers are struggling to keep up with demand. So there's not as much of a need for knockoffs.

"China is expanding as well, but duplicating existing business products is a much more intense problem there, due to its scale and to some of the historically cultural ways of doing business there."

The result can be pump equipment that's risky for the end user in the field, according to Carpenter: "Typically, copied equipment comes without the research and development that supported the original manufacturer's product line. Those issues can range from material selection and strength, to certain intricate design aspects that are easy to overlook.

"Much of the time, customers are not aware they're buying a duplicated product. This unknowingly exposes them to warranty and product liability issues when something goes wrong. One common problem is buying a knockoff pump that's been incorporated into a larger machine that ships to the customer. That opens a whole new can of worms."

"There are enforcement mechanisms, but they're more difficult if you're a smaller company without the resources or networks," says Dennis Carder, treasurer of Weir Specialty Pumps in Salt Lake City. "The best a company can do is try to identify countries where those copies might be manufactured, and target their efforts to registering names and patents there. In the more developed industrialized countries, it can be difficult to give them enough specifics for protection but not enough that you're actually showing them how to go and knock your product off."

"At a time when everyone seems to be outsourcing in China," adds Weir's vice-president of product engineering Tom Angle, "you want to think about not producing too many different parts in a given location, but rather spreading them around."