U.S. Customs and Border Protection September 18, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document adopts as a final rule, with changes, interim amendments to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations pertaining to importations of merchandise bearing suspected counterfeit trademarks or trade names that are recorded with CBP. Specifically, the amendments allow CBP, for the purpose of obtaining assistance in determining whether merchandise bears a counterfeit mark, to disclose to a trademark or other mark owner information appearing on merchandise or its retail packaging that may otherwise be protected by the Trade Secrets Act. This final rule also amends the CBP regulations to further enhance information-sharing procedures by requiring CBP to release to the importer an unredacted sample or image of the suspect merchandise or its retail packaging any time after presentation of the suspect goods for examination. This change is to reflect that an importer may not have complete information about the marks appearing on imported goods, and release of such unredacted information will assist the importer in providing CBP with a meaningful response to a detention notice. The amendments in this final rule also require CBP to release limited importation information to the mark owner no later than the time of issuance of the detention notice to the importer, rather than within 30 business days from the date of detention. Finally, these amendments require CBP to notify the mark owner that use of any information otherwise protected by the Trade Secrets Act that is disclosed by CBP to the mark owner is for the limited purpose of assisting CBP.