The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued its 2011 report to Congress on China's compliance with its World Trade Organization commitments and provided testimony on its findings. USTR’s major concerns include China’s lack of intellectual property rights enforcement; pursuit of nationalistic policies such as subsidies, export restraints, unique standards, and indigenous innovation; lack of transparency and predictability, especially in agricultural trade; and apparent discrimination against foreign enterprises.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently announced that updates will be made to the CAMIR and ANSI X12 sea and rail interface guidelines that will set the stage for announcing an enforcement date to require residue (such as chemicals or other bulk goods) imported in containers considered to be instruments of international traffic (IIT) to be manifested, classified, and entered. CBP has delayed setting an enforcement date for this requirement since May 2011 pending the ability for Section 321 entries to be electronically filed in the rail mode.
Blu-ray players with the BD-Live and Bonus View features from a who’s-who list of 38 CE suppliers violate the patent of Walker Digital LLC, alleged Walker, a Stamford, Conn., R&D lab, in a complaint filed Dec. 5 at the U.S. International Trade Commission. The Walker patent (No. 6,263,505) for a “system and method for supplying supplemental information for video programs” was granted July 17, 2001. The same patent was the basis of a trade infringement lawsuit that Walker filed against many of the same companies on April 11 in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del. That case is still pending. The complaint at the ITC seeks an exclusion order barring the importation of the Blu-ray decks into the U.S. The next step is for the ITC to vote whether to open a patent investigation into the complaint, the commission said. The ITC seeks comments by Dec. 16 whether an exclusion order would harm the public.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.
The International Trade Administration has initiated administrative reviews of certain companies subject to antidumping duty orders, which may result in new estimated AD cash deposit rates for the listed firms. The ITA intends to issue the final results of these administrative reviews no later than October 31, 2012.
The Center for Environmental Health announced it has reached settlements with eleven companies1, including Kiss My Face, Boots, and Colomer, requiring them to adhere to the California Organic Production Act (COPA). The settlement follows CEH’s June lawsuit alleging their products were mislabeled as organic.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is providing advanced notice of 24 country/tariff number pairs that may exceed the 2011 Competitive Need Limitations (CNLs) under the Generalized System of Preferences program and could possibly lose their GSP eligibility on July 1, 2012.
The Court of International Trade has ruled in favor of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Ford Motor Company v. U.S., denying Ford's claims for a refund of duties under NAFTA after untimely filing its NAFTA certificates of origin beyond the statutory one year limit. The CIT agreed with CBP that a valid refund claim exists only when the importer has filed all required documentation. As such, all components of a claim, including copies of the certificates of origin, must be filed within one year of importation.
In Cisco Systems, Inc. v. U.S., the Court of International Trade denied U.S. Customs and Border Protection's motion to dismiss challenges to its classification of "networking equipment" in protests filed by Cisco Systems, Inc. Customs argued that Cisco's protests were invalid because the use of the phrase "networking equipment" is too vague. However, the CIT stated that technical precision is not required in protests and that Customs could have sought more information from Cisco to evaluate its protests.
Forcing ISPs to monitor all e-communications on their network to prevent digital piracy would seriously infringe their freedom to conduct their business and may also breach customers’ civil rights, the European Court of Justice said in a closely watched opinion November 24. National authorities and courts must strike a fair balance between protecting intellectual property rights and operators’ businesses, something the Belgian court order against ISP Scarlet failed to do, the court said. The decision will dramatically affect the national and European debate on online copyright infringement, said telecom/Internet independent advisor Innocenzo Genna.