Tilting at windmills

Product piracy at trade fairs is a familiar problem. But very few people are aware that modular exhibition stands, and not only the goods displayed on them, frequently consist of forgeries - much to the original manufacturers chagrin. Exhibition organisers could do more about this.

In 1968 a vision was transformed into a product that would herald a new era in stand construction when Hans Staeger developed the Octanorm modular stand system, the first variable octagonal aluminium profile that subsequently unleashed a veritable innovative avalanche of modular inventions in the newly established company. Nowadays there is hardly an exhibition in the world at which Octanorm systems are not in use. The name stands for the original. Equally so in China, where the Filderstadt-based company has been active for 20 years and built up a positive image for itself.
Managing director Hans Bruder says Octanorm first became aware of bootleggers in 1992. After the attempt to integrate the product pirates into a joint venture rather than fight them failed, in 2003 Octanorm set up a fully-owned affiliate in Suzhou to supply the market with original products. Even so, there was no stopping the intractable imitators. At present Bruder says there are more than 35 copycats of Octanorm stand systems around the world, 24 of them in China alone. Not only the items in the product range are counterfeited, but also the catalogues, product descriptions, pictures and article numbers. Not even the logo is safe.
Apart from the substantial loss of sales, the copies seriously tarnish the Octanorm image, Bruder complains. In most cases the cheaply made reproductions do not take security aspects into consideration. "When a stand constructed with copies like these gives way the negative image is associated with our name!" While the issue can be dealt with relatively well in Germany, abroad it can be expected to cost huge sums. In the United States, for example, the company ran up bills in the millions when it took legal steps against a product pirate from China.
Burkhardt Leitner constructiv in Stuttgart also knows of specific examples of various product imitations, from lifting certain construction principles to 1:1 copies. "All the pirates were in non-EU countries: Russia, Turkey, South Africa and South Korea," managing director Michael Daubner says. The problem is not so much one of breadth as of depth: "As far as we know, our constructiv CLIC system was only copied by one company in each of the countries mentioned; but it was done very exactly and with similarly in-depth features as our original product."
With increasing globalisation and digitisation the number of counterfeiters has risen in the last few years. The problem is that it is very difficult for companies to realise patents or similar copyrights in all countries. "The issue is extremely important for the entire industry and for our country's future development," Michael Becker from Ingenti, Idstein, insists. "The damage already caused by counterfeits is considerable and enormously detrimental to overall economic development." The specialist for mobile exhibition engineering is familiar with the problem at first hand: "The first pirated product was a technically very basic roller blind system that hit the German market about three years ago," Becker enumerates. "Initially the forgery was of very poor quality and only moderately executed, in other words more of an optical copy. Meanwhile, though, all technical features are executed extremely precisely, making it difficult to spot the difference." In the meantime, Becker adds, these pirated products are to be found at every trade fair.
The number is also being driven up significantly as more and more companies dabble in mobile exhibition systems. "Whereas years ago the environment was still very transparent and manageable inasmuch as it consisted of specialists, nowadays you'll also find these systems at companies such as classical digital printer s, advertising engineers, exhibit builders and even copy shops. Internet sales of these units are also extremely high, with systems being sold to dealers at the most cut-price rates without advisory services or presentation." Such units are cropping up at trade fairs in ever larger numbers.
Fighting back is a very tricky business, Becker laments, comparing it to "tilting at windmills". Nonetheless, it is extremely important to show suppliers and manufacturers that product counterfeiting and distribution will not be tolerated. "Unfortunately, only a few of our products are patented, so that we're hardly in a position to campaign against the others. For those of our systems protected by patents we pursue a host of legal avenues, such as injunctions or even the removal of goods from exhibition stands. We cooperate closely with the manufacturers on this and exchange all kinds of information on the subject."
Particularly important, though, is customer awareness that a cheap counterfeit product does not deliver such good quality as the original. "We always appeal here to morality and loyalty as well. People who simply copy products don't engage in design or product development, they don't build prototypes or test the systems and refine on them. Innovations are the task and duty of the manufacturer and, as we all know, that costs a great deal of money - money that the product pirates never shell out! Taking a long-term view, where are the innovations and further developments supposed to come from? Certainly not from the forgery factories! Once customers have internalised this, we've achieved our objective."
To avoid plagiarism in future, in addition to global patent protection Ingenti also builds on its own speed in product development on the one hand and complicated technical realisation on the other. The more complicated the product's design and function make it to manufacture, the more difficult it is for the pirate firms to achieve, "or they have to invest a lot of money, which they don't generally have."
The company Leitner in Waiblingen likewise has to contend with product piracy. For example, the Leitner L1 and Leitner L10 systems have been copied and sold both in Germany and abroad. "We know of five to six copies, and this does not even include the Asian market," Rainer Pescheck, International Sales, reports. The company fear that their new Leitner L12 system will soon find illegal emulators. Leitner likewise appeal to clients to place their trust in the original manufacturer's full service and know-how, acquired in more than 40 years working in the exhibition trade. Similarly, the marketing and sales manager at the Hilden branch of SYMA-System, Peter Jürgen Klee, urges his customers always to purchase from the manufacturer to be sure of getting the original goods.
But this alone cannot suffice to deal with the problem: "Exhibition organisers should take steps to put the kibosh on plagiarism," Hans Bruder demands. "More needs to be done to prevent the admission of counterfeits at the stand in the first place. Hopefully, exhibition companies are receptive to this issue."
Michael Becker agrees: "Initiatives and campaigns such as Messe Frankfurt recently introduced with their ‘against copying' concept must be pursued further and more intensively. More information must be provided on the legal possibilities available; interest groups need to get together and take joint legal action against the forgery factories." "The best thing would be to introduce a kind of international blacklist detailing all counterfeits," Rainer Pescheck suggests. "What's more, every exhibition stand pushing pirate products or constructed from system imitations should be closed down and fined."
"In countries where piracy is rife, more restrictive copyright laws would certainly be a good thing," Michael Daubner says, but concedes that in general product piracy can be stamped out only by a deliberate stance on the part of consumers to buy nothing but the original, be it for considerations of quality, intellectual property, copyright or ultimately out of respect for the originator's innovativeness. Anja Wagner

m+a report Nr.4 / 2006 vom 15.06.2006
m+a report vom 15. Juni 2006