U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued revised guidance on the classification of utilitarian or functional articles with festive designs and/or motifs in light of the Michael Simon Design, Inc. v. U.S. decision. The revised guidance supersedes its previous versions.
CBP has posted updated Excel workbooks containing historical information and fill dates for the following tariff rate quotas:
In the August 20, 2009 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 43, No. 34), CBP published a notice proposing to modify one ruling and revoke a treatment as follows:
Royalties for downloads and public performances have been separate and distinct going back to the federal government’s pioneering report in 1995 on intellectual property rights on the Internet, several trade associations told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a friend-of- the-court brief late Monday. ASCAP is trying to license and profit from “the same activity that its members have already licensed directly or through a different licensing agent” as downloads, they said. The brief was filed by the Digital Media Association, Entertainment Software Association, MPAA, National Association of Recording Merchandisers, Independent Film and Television Alliance, and Entertainment Merchants Association.
Royalties for downloads and public performances have been separate and distinct going back to the federal government’s pioneering report in 1995 on intellectual property on the Internet, several trade associations told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a friend-of-the-court brief late Monday. ASCAP is trying to license and profit from “the same activity that its members have already licensed directly or through a different licensing agent” as downloads, they said. The brief was filed by the Digital Media Association, Entertainment Software Association, MPAA, National Association of Recording Merchandisers, Independent Film and Television Alliance, and Entertainment Merchants Association.
A U.S. company that lets users search for and obtain sensitive information from government and private databases, including criminal and tax records and phone-call histories, violated Canadian privacy law, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic filed a complaint in 2004 for a Canadian woman who said she paid $100 to receive her own “psychological profile” from Abika.com, owned by AccuSearch. The profile included a list of 30 character traits and “numerical ratings,” which the woman called “laughably inaccurate,” in categories such as marital fidelity and leadership. Abika said it provided services no different from Google’s by searching through information held by others. The commissioner’s office at first decided that it couldn’t require a U.S. company to provide information. But after the clinic got a Canadian court order giving the commissioner authority to investigate the “transborder flow” of information, the case was reopened. Stoddart said her office couldn’t find a factual basis for the psychological profile created by Abika and so could find no violation of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. But Abika’s other practices drew the office’s interest, and officials met with representatives of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which was investigating Abika and eventually filed a successful lawsuit against the company for selling phone records without permission. The trial-court outcome was affirmed by an appeals court in June. The FTC gave the commissioner’s office a spreadsheet listing Abika’s Canadian customers 2002 to 2006 and showing several “repeat requesters” whose files were marked “completed.” One was a business who confirmed it received information on Canadians that “proved not to be reliable.” Records from the FTC’s lawsuit, including Abika’s correspondence with database vendors, showed that some Canadians’ call histories had been turned over by Abika. Abika’s U.S. lawyers have twice requested extensions to answer Stoddart’s finding that it violated Canadian law -- first to explain how it will stop disclosing Canadians’ information, and then to find Canadian counsel. Stoddart refused the second extension.
The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements has issued a notice setting forth the interim procedures it will follow in implementing the commercial availability provision of the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.
The International Trade Data System Product Information Committee1 has presented a concept paper on recommendations for the use of "product information codes" to the ITDS Board of Directors.
CBP has issued a CSMS message stating that the FDA has become aware that some recent revisions to its Import Alerts are not being posted correctly on the FDA website. After further investigation, there are data system difficulties preventing the trade community from viewing the most up-to-date versions of the import alerts. The appropriate parties within FDA are aware of the situation and are working expeditiously to remedy the problem. (CSMS 09-000284, dated 08/07/09, available at http://apps.cbp.gov/csms/viewmssg.asp?Recid=17674&page=&srch_argv=09-000284&srchtype=all&btype=&sortby=&sby)
The International Trade Commission has instituted a section 337 patent-based investigation of certain collaborative system products and components thereof pursuant to a complaint.