CBP Issues Procurement Ruling on Unified Communications Solution
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a final determination that the U.S. is the country of origin for a certain unified communications solution for purposes of U.S. government procurement.
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The final determination was issued at the request of Avaya Inc.
(CBP issues country of origin advisory rulings and final determinations on whether an article is or would be a product of a designated country or instrumentality for the purpose of granting waivers of certain ‘‘Buy American’’ restrictions in U.S. law or practice for products offered for sale to the U.S. government.)
Engineered, Assembled & Programmed in U.S. with Foreign Parts & U.S. Software
The product at issue is a unified communications solution which is made up of numerous electronic components that are assembled and integrated at an end user’s premises in the U.S. using software known as Communication Manager.1
There are 6 main subassemblies that compose the product, five of which are made in China. The sixth is manufactured in Israel but will eventually be manufactured in China.
All the engineering, development, and design were developed in the U.S. In addition, the Communications Manager software was developed and is tested by Avaya in the U.S., though a small percentage of the ongoing software development takes place abroad.
A total of 11 days is required to assemble the necessary equipment, install the hardware, and integrate the hardware and software in the U.S. The installation and integration requires both adjustments to hardware and customized software programming, which takes approximately 5 days.
CBP Finds Substantial Transformation Occurs in U.S.
CBP states that while the main subassemblies are manufactured in China and Israel, all of the initial engineering, development, and design were developed in the U.S. In addition, assembly and installation of the hardware components takes a significant amount of time to complete and is performed in the U.S. Finally, the installation of the Communication Manager software adds functionality to certain individual components and changes functionality of other components.
Based upon the totality of the circumstances, CBP finds that there is a substantial transformation of the component parts in the U.S. Therefore, CBP finds the country of origin for government procurement purposes to be the U.S.
Any Party-at-Interest May Request Judicial Review by Sept 7, 2010
CBP states that any party-at-interest, as defined in 19 CFR 177.22(d), may seek judicial review of this final determination by September 7, 2010. In addition, under 19 CFR 177.31, any party-at-interest other than the party which requested this final determination may request that CBP reexamine the matter anew and issue a new final determination.
1Communication Manager is the IP telephony software foundation on which Avaya delivers unified communications to large and small enterprises. It can control and expand a system from fewer than 100 users to as many as 36,000 users on a single system to more than one million users on a single network.
CBP contact -- Alison Umberger (202) 325- 0267
(FR Pub 08/06/10, HQ H090115)