One interpretation we received:
National Measurement Office of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (www.nmo.gov.uk) The recast RoHS Directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 1 July 2011 and entered into force on 21 July 2011. It will be transposed into national law on 2 January 2013. The RoHS Directive is now a CE Marking Directive. The general principles governing the CE marking are set out in Regulation (EC) No 765/2008. It should also be noted that point 21 of the preamble of the RoHS Directive states that: "Procedures for assessing the conformity of EEE subject to this Directive should be consistent with relevant Union legislation, in particular Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on a common framework for the marketing of products. Harmonising conformity assessment procedures should give manufacturers legal certainty as to what they have to provide as proof of compliance to the authorities throughout the Union." Regulation 768/2008/EC establishes a common framework for the marketing of products and states in the preamble that: (29) The CE marking, indicating the conformity of a product, is the visible consequence of a whole process comprising conformity assessment in a broad sense. General principles governing the CE marking are set out in Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and the Council of 9 July 2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products. Rules governing the affixing of the CE marking, to be applied in Community harmonisation legislation providing for the use of that marking, should be laid down in this Decision. (30) The CE marking should be the only marking of conformity indicating that a product is in conformity with Community harmonisation legislation. However, other markings may be used as long as they contribute to the improvement of consumer protection and are not covered by Community harmonisation legislation. (31) It is crucial to make clear to both manufacturers and users that by affixing the CE marking to a product the manufacturer declares that the product is in conformity with all applicable requirements and that he takes full responsibility therefore. This clearly indicates that RoHS symbols or other markings should not be used as a conformity mark [WB - emphasis added]. For information the Commission has published an FAQ consultation paper which provides clarity on this point. On page 25 it states that: "From 2nd January 2013 EEE in scope that bears a CE marking is presumed to be in conformity with the requirements of RoHS 2 and therefore is presumed not to contain more than the tolerated maximum concentration values as mentioned in Annexes II, III and IV of RoHS 2. From 2nd January 2013, CE marking shall be the only marking which attests the conformity of the product with the requirements of RoHS 2." The 'phase in period' is considered as beginning on entry into force (21 July 2011) and ending upon transposition into national law (2 January 2013). Therefore products placed on the market on or after 2 January 2013 must comply with all requirements of RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU. The term placing on the market is the initial action of making a product available for the first time on the Community market, with a view to distribution or use in the Community. This is considered to take place when a product is transferred from the stage of manufacture with the intention of distribution or use on the Community market and applies to each individual product, and not a type, series or line of product. I hope that this clarification re. use of RoHS symbols makes sense and is of use. -Will William L. Brown Jr. Engineering Manager Regulatory and Compliance Tyco Security Products 6 Technology Park Drive Westford, MA 01886 USA Mobile: (978) 727 7069 Desk: (978) 577 4205 Email: willbr...@tycoint.com From: Crane, Lauren [mailto:lauren.cr...@kla-tencor.com] Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 11:06 AM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] RoHS Question Nick, I completely agree with your first point. One of the 'counterfit' discussions that has gone around is related to a 'Chinese Export' mark where the font was the same but the spacing between the 'C' and the 'E' was diminished. There was even a YouTube cast posted from an EU Parliamentarian alerting the world to the issue. However, there is much commentary suggesting it was all a myth born of a joke (ref http://www.cemarking.net/chinese-export/). Regarding your second point, I would love to see the details of what the UK enforcement authorities got wrong. Can you share the details or point to an article, etc... (this may read as defensive, but I am truly interested) Regards, Lauren Crane From: Nick Williams [mailto:nick.willi...@conformance.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 5:28 PM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] RoHS Question I don't have any clearer answer than those already been given by Lauren Crane and William Brown, but a couple of points occur which may be grist to the mill. Firstly, I suspect that the original intention of including wording in the Directive to restrict the use of other marks has, at least in part, grown from the New Legislative Framework requirement intended to protect the CE mark, and so the intention was not to outlaw other marks per-se, but was to outlaw other marks which might be confused with (and taken to mean the same as) a legitimate CE mark. Secondly, and somewhat less conjecturally, the UK enforcement authority turned out to be spectacularly wrong in their interpretation of at least one aspect of the old Directive (the large scale industrial tools exemption) and so I'd be inclined to take anything else they say with a pinch of salt as well. Nick. On 6 Sep 2012, at 20:10, Brown, William wrote: Nick Williams Director Direct line: +44 1298 873811 Mobile: +44 7702 995135 email: nick.willi...@conformance.co.uk ----- Conformance Ltd - Product safety, approvals and CE-marking consultants The Old Methodist Chapel, Great Hucklow, Buxton, SK17 8RG England Tel. +44 1298 873800, Fax. +44 1298 873801, www.conformance.co.uk Registered in England, Company No. 3478646 - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald <dhe...@gmail.com> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald <dhe...@gmail.com> - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>
