In U.S. v. Ford Motor Company (Ford), the Court of International Trade (CIT) granted Ford's motion to dismiss certain U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims for a repayment of duties in the amount of $5,275,329 under 19 USC 1592(d), as the statute of limitations had expired.
Retailers attending last week’s closed-door Destination PlayStation event in Miami’s South Beach indicated they are “starting to be much more optimistic than in the past” few months, Take-Two Interactive CEO Paul Eibeler told analysts in a conference call late Tues.
In June 2005, the Court of International Trade ruled in International Custom Products (ICP), Inc. v. U.S., that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Notice of Action (Rate Advance) reclassifying certain "white sauce" is null and void as CBP failed to observe 19 USC 1625(c) which requires, among other things, advance notice and comment when such an action would revoke or modify a binding ruling.
(This summary first appeared in ITT on March 2, 2006 06030215. It is amended and reissued in order to reflect the March 1, 2006 version of the 2006 HTS. Also, sections on changed circumstances reviews and email notification are added. The BP Note is also revised to cover the expanded list of allowed non-originating textiles.)
The International Trade Administration (ITA) and the International Trade Commission (ITC) have issued various notices, each initiating automatic five-year Sunset Reviews on the above-listed antidumping (AD) duty orders.
The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) has issued a notice, effective March 1, 2006, setting forth the interim procedures it will follow in implementing the Commercial Availability Provision of the U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Written comments on these interim procedures are due by March 9, 2006.
The Journal of Commerce reports that progress has been made on two technology fronts in the battle for supply-chain security - an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) working group has agreed to an outline of standards for an electronic container seal and a company that has been working closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to perfect a container security device announced that it had passed a critical test for reliability. The article notes that a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulation expected to require seals for all containers is under departmental review. (JoC, dated 02/06/06, www.joc.com.)
Calling Google’s objections “simply beside the point,” DoJ pressed its case to the U.S. Dist. Court, San Jose, that Google should be forced to hand over a sample of queries entered into search engines and URLs returned in searches, for govt. use to defend an overturned anti-pornography law. The govt. took several potshots at the search giant, saying its arguments were contradictory or lacked evidence. Meanwhile, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) filed a brief on behalf of Google, and Stanford U.’s Center for Internet & Society asked the court to allow 3rd-party briefs on search engines’ classification under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The next hearing in the case is set March 13.
China has shut down 76 websites in a 4-month operation against online piracy, National Copyright Administration Deputy Dir. Yan Xiaohong said Wed., Reuters reported. Fourteen of the 172 cases investigated were prompted by requests from non-Chinese companies and groups, including the MPAA, which said a Beijing company was offering American movies like The Pacifier for unauthorized download, AFP reported. That company was filed about $11,100, Yan said. “What we've investigated may be a very small portion of the problem,” but China “will have better cooperation and exchanges with international organizations so as to enhance our capability to better fight Internet piracy,” Yan said. Both online and hard piracy are common in China because of high prices for authorized copies and govt. restrictions on cultural imports, with several Western movies not officially available. China is also weighing whether to sign 2 international treaties that take aim at online piracy, and has come under pressure to do so by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which issued a report on U.S.-China trade relations this week. The report called intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement “one of China’s greatest shortcomings.” China “still plays a modest role relative to its economic and political heft” in international “trade- enhancing” institutions like the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and isn’t even part of WIPO’s Internet treaties, the report said. It has also participated only “on a limited basis” in the International Telecom Union. But the report said headway was being made from U.S. pressure, with China agreeing to increase IPR prosecutions and fight hard and online piracy of movies, audio products and software. USTR Rob Portman briefly addressed China and the Internet in a Tues. news conference on the report. He said U.S. comparative advantage over China “includes high technology, it includes some of these Internet services” and “knowledge- based exports,” and the U.S. is “disproportionately impacted” by piracy because of its world primacy in software exports and entertainment products. He declined to comment on Hill proposals to prevent U.S. companies from locating servers on Chinese soil, saying he hadn’t seen them yet.
In reply comments to the Copyright Office in its anticircumvention-exemption rulemaking, content associations sparred with fair-use groups over the market effect of commonly available software and hardware for ripping, burning and sharing movies, music and TV shows. They also argued over whether security issues of copy-protection technologies like the DRM on some Sony BMG CDs make necessary an exemption for security researchers. The Copyright Office is considering adding situations in which “access control technologies,” such as Content Scrambling System (CSS) on DVDs, can be legally bypassed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).