Falsification
FALSIFICATION
Mass Media’s Dishonesty is Long Known, or Dealer is dangerous for Consumer...
Izmailova Guzel
On 18th December 2006 an article named “Live water is long know” and an associated article named “Dealer is dangerous for Producer” were published in issue #236 (2313) of the newspaper “Delovoy Peterburg’ (Business Peterburg), further “DP”.
This publication was initiated by the team of JSC “NPO Ekran” as a refutation of an article called “Business application of live water found”, published in “DP” earlier in the year (in issue #78 dated 04/05/06). That article described activities of the Petersburg company “NPP Izumrud” allegedly producing original electrochemical devices EMERALD and STEL. The article was written from the director of the above-mentioned company V.V. Vinogradov.
The main reason made the “NPO Ekran” team address “DP” with demand to publish the said refutation was the fact that production and sale of electrochemical devices by the Vinogradov company is falsification as the devices produced are nothing else than counterfeit and, of course, such devices do not provide characteristics declared by the real producer – “NPO Ekran”. Such being the case they are real threat to consumer’s health. The article contained as well distored information on the ECA history, it’s pioneers, it was full of terminology mistakes.
The refutation letter sent by “NPO Ekran” to “DP” was accompanied by a great number of information allowing to make conclusions on Vinogradov’s dishonesty, but for unintelligible reasons the newspaper’s editors did not wish to use it, or at least to compare and check the information provided by “NPO Ekran” and Vinogradov.
The refutation-article was compiled in such a manner that it did not reflect the position of “NPO Ekran”. Moreover it appeared to be hidden advertisement of Vinogradov’s activities misleading the consumers.
Firstly, the editors have shortened “NPO Ekran”’s letter canceling from it statements on Vinogradov’s infringing goods. The editors have placed the wrong emphasis pretending that “NPO Ekran” was disturbed simply by the historical inaccuracies and terminology mistakes. However the main idea of “NPO Ekran” was to inform the readers of the fact that Vinogradov falsified electrochemical equipment which threatened consumer’s health.
Secondly, in the associated article called “Dealer is dangerous for producer”, published on the newspaper’s initiative, the editors tried to arise the situation as a conflict between the producer – “NPO Ekran” and it’s former dealer - “NPP Izumrud”.
In the end of 90s “NPP Izumrud” did serve as a dealer of “NPO Ekran”. However at present “NPO Ekran” does not maintain any business relations with V.V. Vinogradov and his company. The latter addressed the patent owners (V.M.Bakhir and Yu.G. Zadorozhny) with request to conclude a License agreement providing the right of producing the ECA devices protected by the Russian patents, but the patent owners refused to grant such License to Vinogradov. Therefore “NPP Izumrud” violates acting law on intellectual property protection. Besides lack of necessary knowledge and qualification prevents Vinogradov from producing high-quality electrochemical medical and household equipment. Produced with technical and technological defects such devices do not meet the declared requirements but, on the contrary, pose a threat to health and life of consumers. At that the counterfeit devices are accompanied by false documents that were originally granted to JSC “NPO “Ekran” which is a direct violation of the Russian Law. The more so as the parameters of the false devices are inconsistent with the parameters of the original devices declared in the original documents granted to “NPO Ekran”.
Although in the associated article Vinogradov states that he has got patents and registered trade mark, but this is a distored information as well. Our expert Taras Barabash comments:
“An expert interviewed by the newspaper (Head of S-Petersburg branch of AKG “Gorodisssky and partners”) when analyzing patents for utility models and Trade mark certificates obtained by Vinogradov did not mention in his comments certain rules of the Russian Patent Law. His comments as published by the newspaper appeared to be hidden advertisement of Vinogradov’s devices and further misled the consumer.
I will start with an easier question regarding trade mark. I will not here draw your attention to any additional materials and will rely only on the information given in the comment. The article “Dealer is dangerous for Producer” states that since 1998 “NPO Ekran” was selling devices produced by “NPO Ekran”. Products were classified as electrochemical house-hold devices for drinking water treatment named “Emerald”.
In accordance with the Russian Law on “On trade mark…” protection shall not be granted to a trade mark consisting only of the elements that came into common use as definitions of goods of certain kind (article 6). An honest dealer could obtain “Emerald” trade mark certificate excluding water treatment devices from the list of goods which can be produced under such name. Dishonest dealer could obtain “Emerald” trade mark certificate for water treatment devices in particular by way of deceiving Patent agency or taking advantage of imperfection of the search system used by the Patent experts. Such is indeed the case of Vinogradov.
As for the utility models patents, indeed, an inventor or an employer may be granted a patent for any engineering solution if such engineering solutions comply with norms and requirements set by the Law in the field of intellectual property protection. No one can limit the patent owners in their activities to promote in the market products protected by their patents.
However I would like to point out that in accordance with the Russian Patent Law “patented invention or utility model shall be deemed applied in the product or process if such product contains… every feature… of utility model, quoted in the independent clause of the claim of invention or utility model, or feature equivalent to it” (article 10 of the Law).
Patent owners of utility models 44979 and 51613 are physical persons. And if “NPP Izumrud” has legal rights to use them in their activities no one may present a claim against their products. But only in case if these patents are used as provided by the Law.
However, if the devices produced contain other than declared in the patents engineering solutions, in such case it is a violation of Law.”
An expertise of “NPP Izumrud” devices revealed that they did not use inventions protected by patents for utility models ## 44979 and 51613, but use counterfeit products, in particular, false electrochemical elements FEM-3.
It is enough to compare drawings of the electrochemical reactors in Vinogradov’s patents with the reactors produced by his company and used in the devices, and with the drawings of the original FEM-3 element protected by the patent of V. Bakhir and Yu. Zadorozhny (patent # 2078737).
The reactors illegally produced by “NPP Izumrud” have no firm oxide coating which means that water in such devices becomes saturated with titan ions and not purified at all. Besides power supple used by “NPP Izumrud” in their devices for the reasons of economy is dangerous. Such power supply has no transformer and high voltage contacts directly the flow-through water which may result in electric current damage.
Paraphrasing the name of the associated article we would like to stress here that such “former dealer” is dangerous not as much to the producer as he poses a threat to the CONSUMER especially in the market of healthcare products.
We would like once again to warn consumers against purchasing harmful devices, to urge them to study attentively all permissive documents before buying electrochemical equipment.
From our part we will continue to do our best to inform people of our products as we see our goal in working for the benefit of the society and for the sake of people’s health.
Please find below pictures of the false devices with explanation of the defects.
1. Vinogradov V.V. uses registered trade mark label of “Laboratory of Electrotechnology” l.l.c. in order to confuse the consumer and to make it difficult to tell the original device from the false one.
2. Hydraulic circuit does not provide the due level of water treatment quality.
3. No relay, risk of fire. Besides a knot on a high-voltage cord may lead to a short circuit.
4. Power supply with restrictive condensers brings high voltage to the reactors’ electrodes i.e. to water which is dangerous to life of user.
5. The anode of the false FEM-3 element has no oxide coating. This is why the false FEM-3 element instead of providing destruction of microorganisms and oxidation of organic compounds evolves into the water ions of titanium which has a harmful effect on health.
6. There is no code of the company-producer on the label behind.
7. This is a package of the false “Emerald” produced by “NPP Izumrud.”
