Danfoss steps up fight against counterfeits

CHINA: Danfoss has stepped up its anti-counterfeit activities after a survey last year found that as many as 7% of Maneurop brand compressors in China were counterfeit.

Since the extent of the counterfeit problem and its impact on its business was revealed, Danfoss has made every effort to engage distributors, OEM partners, project contractors, installers and end users through anti-counterfeiting publicity.

Danfoss’ Intellectual Property Rights Department has been working to uphold the company’s rights and interests and is said to have been striking heavy blows against counterfeiting and rights infringement. In July 2012, Danfoss was successful in closing down a workshop in Beijing that had been refurbishing compressors and selling them falsely as new Danfoss Maneurop compressors. A large quantity of counterfeit compressor products was seized.

Recently, several counterfeit bogus Maneurop compressor websites, posing as official, were discovered and shut down.

Danfoss China is also ensuring that compressors scrapped at its own factory in Wuqing will not become a source for falsely refurbished compressors. After disassembling, all the main parts are crushed to destroy their integrity, appearance and functions in order to prevent any possibility that they will be used by counterfeiters.

From the beginning of last year, Danfoss has held a series of more than 30 commercial refrigeration roadshow seminars in cities all over China, including Beijing, Yantai, Binzhou, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Nanning, Urumqi, and Chengdu. In addition to an introduction to products and technologies for the refrigeration market, the seminars also touch upon the matter of intellectual property rights and shares warnings of the risks of counterfeit compressors in terms of safety, efficiency and performance.

This year Danfoss has been actively publicising its fight against counterfeits and a special anti-counterfeiting page, Differentiating between Genuine and Counterfeit Danfoss Compressors, was added to the company’s Chinese-language website.

In the coming months, Danfoss is to launch an anti-counterfeiting advertising campaign, using the web and social media to educate the consumer public on how to differentiate between rebuilt and authentic units and on the dangers of using rebuilt compressors.

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