Brian Feito

The U.S. Trade Representative Monday evening listed 63 Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings that may face tariffs of up to 100 percent when imported from France. It's in retaliation for that country’s digital services tax.

The Office of the U.S Trade Representative issued its first list of product exclusions from the 25 percent Trade Act Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, granting full or partial exemptions for nearly two dozen 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings, said a notice posted Friday at the agency’s website. The exclusions apply retroactively to July 6, the date the first tranche of tariffs took effect, and will remain in effect until one year after the USTR’s notice is published in the Federal Register.

Customs and Border Protection will soon announce a strategy to address the explosion of e-commerce imports, said acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan at the American Association of Exporters and Importers annual conference in Austin. CBP will combine engagement and education with internal changes that will help ports deal with surging volumes, he said. Enforcement will evaluate the compliance rate in "various e-commerce environments,” McAleenan said Wednesday. He said a recent five-day interagency operation at Kennedy International Airport in New York found a noncompliance rate of 43 percent of packages examined, with 800 intellectual property rights violations among nearly 1,300 noncompliant shipments. CBP’s e-commerce strategy will focus largely on small businesses, which are benefiting from the rapid expansion of e-commerce but “don’t necessarily know about international trade laws and regulations,” McAleenan said. CBP will conduct outreach and provide an “essential repository of information on clearance requirements,” he said. In combination with the recent increase in the de minimis limit to $800, the rapid rise of e-commerce caused shipments at some ports to increase by over 500 percent in the last 15 months, overwhelming what had been a “perfectly adequate staffing level,” he said.

The Department of Energy should withdraw its recently issued proposal to require the filing of “certifications of admissibility” at time of entry for products subject to energy efficiency standards (see 1512310008), or at least suspend the rulemaking process while it does “further analysis and significant outreach,” said several trade groups in comments. The Feb. 29 joint comments from the groups, which included CTA, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, Information Technology Industry Council and National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, were posted Friday.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released results Thursday of its 2015 Special 301 out-of-cycle review on intellectual property infringement. It focused on the sale of counterfeit goods online, listing 14 online markets alongside physical markets in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay and Thailand. USTR cited the difficulties customs authorities face attempting to stop shipments of counterfeit goods sold online, and the growing problem of free trade zones enabling counterfeit activities. Major Chinese online shopping website Taobao again escaped inclusion, after last being listed in 2012. USTR said Taobao parent Alibaba took some enforcement measures over the past year, including “a good-faith product takedown procedure, a three and four strikes penalty system, and an English-language version of the TaoProtect portal to register [intellectual property rights] and submit takedown requests.” But USTR said it's “increasingly concerned” by reports that Alibaba’s enforcement program is “too slow, difficult to use, and lacks transparency.” The report applauded China for its efforts over the past year to examine the problem of counterfeit sales online; a study by that country in November found less than 59 percent of articles sold online last year were genuine. USTR cautioned that large free trade zones have “become enablers for counterfeit activities and are being used as a staging ground to disguise the illicit nature of counterfeit goods, to add infringing trademarks, logos and packaging to products, as well as to conceal the origin of counterfeit goods.” The EU has said counterfeiters are to blame, noted USTR. The issue would be partially addressed by the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, it said. Distribution of counterfeit goods bought online is a major enforcement challenge for customs authorities, said USTR. The report “shines an essential light on the rampant nature of content theft, which diminishes the work of creators, harms consumers through the spread of malware,” MPAA CEO Chris Dodd said in a statement. “As the film and television industry relies on robust copyright frameworks to create and distribute content around the globe, the report is a reminder that it’s important to include strong protections for intellectual property in trade agreements such as the TPP.” USTR’s decision to take “action against the identified markets is a win for both consumers and rights holders, allowing the legitimate foreign market distribution of, and thus greater access to, legal content -- of literary works, music, movies and TV programming, video games, software, and other products and services,” said International Intellectual Property Alliance Counsel Steven Metalitz in a statement.

Customs and Border Protection changed procedures for sharing information with importers and rightsholders when it suspects trademark infringement. The CBP final rule takes effect Oct. 19, the agency said in Friday's Federal Register. Regulations in 19 CFR 133.21 enlist importers and rightsholders to help CBP determine whether merchandise infringes on trademarks and trade names and should be seized or excluded, without violating Trade Secrets Act restrictions on government agency release of protected business information. Importers have seven days' notice of detention issuance to convince CBP its mark is legitimate before unredacted images or information or samples are provided to the rightsholder for verification. Partly to address importer concerns, CBP added language clarifying that information provided to rightsholders is only for the purposes of assisting the agency in making infringement determinations. CBP must give the importer unredacted information, pictures or a sample of the suspect merchandise, it said. “Releasing this information to importers will assist them in providing CBP with a meaningful response before or within the seven business day response period." In other changes, the agency removed provisions for a 30-day extension of the limit for detaining merchandise before it's deemed excluded.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman vetoed a ban on imports of early-model Apple iPhones and iPads on Saturday, dealing a blow to Samsung in a patent dispute under Section 337 of the 1930 Tariff Act. The International Trade Commission had issued the limited exclusion order after finding that some Apple iPhones and iPads infringe Samsung’s patents. After a 60-day presidential review period, the USTR said an import ban is unwarranted because the technology at issue is a standard-essential patent, and Samsung didn’t prove it made enough of an effort to license the technology to Apple.

Companies and trade associations overwhelmingly urged U.S. Customs and Border Protection to create a more transparent enforcement process for U.S. International Trade Commission exclusion orders, in comments for an interagency review led by the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. IPEC had asked for input on CBP implementation of the ITC import bans, which normally relate to a finding of intellectual property infringement. Comments addressed CBP’s reluctance to share information provided by patentholders with respondents, and vice versa.

Some provisions of the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013, passed on May 18, “could cripple and certainly would delay substantially the overall Export Control Reform initiative,” said Undersecretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Eric Hirschhorn at a meeting of the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration on Monday. Hirschhorn said he hopes the first ECR rules will be finalized this summer or fall.