Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma met Monday with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss “how Alibaba can create 1 million U.S. jobs by enabling 1 million U.S. small businesses to sell goods into the China and the Asian marketplace,” a Trump spokesman said. Trump’s meeting with Ma came less than a month after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative redesignated Alibaba’s Taobao online shopping arm as a “notorious” market for IP infringement. Taobao faced ongoing criticism for not doing enough to combat the sales of counterfeit products (see 1612210068). Trump’s presidential campaign pledged to force China to stop IP theft (see 1606290080).

Though China has made progress on intellectual property, issues remain, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative reported to Congress on the country's World Trade Organization Compliance. During 2016, the two nations made “significant progress” on ensuring that information and communications technology (ICT) policies don't impose unnecessary nationality-based restrictions on the purchase, sale or use of those products by commercial enterprises, said USTR. It said the U.S. will continue to engage China on ICT policies and technology localization. China is reforming its IP rights regime, but U.S. companies must contend with unpunished thefts of trade secrets for the benefit of Chinese companies, widespread counterfeiting and “bad faith” trademark registration, whereby Chinese authorities “hold … them for ransom,” USTR said. It noted Chinese officials at a November Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meeting in Washington cited potential harm caused by “bad-faith” trademarks and confirmed they're taking more steps to combat them. Overly burdensome licensing requirements, discriminatory regulatory processes and informal bans on entry and expansion continue to affect telecom and internet-related services doing business in China, the report said.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and Hong Kong Customs seized 140 shipments of counterfeit consumer electronics as part of a joint operation in November between the customs administrations, CBP announced. The goods, which included smartphones, adapters, speakers and headsets, would be worth $1.1 million if authentic, CBP said Tuesday. Its mobile intellectual property enforcement team led the joint operation. “This is the third bilateral or multilateral joint operation CBP has conducted with Hong Kong Customs this year,” said Michael Walsh, director of CBP’s Intellectual Property Rights and E-Commerce Division.

President-elect Donald Trump's intended nominee for U.S. Trade Representative has some experience in lobbying for the media industry. Trump wants Robert Lighthizer, a former trade official in the Reagan administration, for the job, his transition team said Tuesday. Lighthizer also has experience at the firm of Skadden Arps, including several lobbying clients, according to a search of records of the Lobbying Disclosure Act Database. His name shows up in a lobbyist search on 2000’s mid-year reports for NAB and News Corp. There will be close coordination between Wilbur Ross, Trump's pick for Commerce secretary (see 1612200017), and Peter Navarro, head of the new White House National Trade Council, "to develop and implement policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand economic growth, strengthen our manufacturing base and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores," said a transition team statement. Lighthizer emerged as contender for the USTR job when he was named to Trump's "landing team" for the USTR transition. Initial reactions from congressional Democrats were largely positive. Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he looks forward to hearing how Lighthizer plans to develop "a trade policy that is as effective for the millworker in Medford, Oregon, as it is for the software developer in Silicon Valley." Wyden also took a shot at Trump's use of Twitter to lay out policy. “It is well past time for the incoming administration to explain its approach toward international trade beyond 140 characters," he said.

The U.S. Trade Representative “will still obviously be the principal negotiator on trade deals,” transition spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Wednesday. Spicer will work as the press secretary in the incoming Trump administration. In recent weeks, transition officials have talked about the significance of the role of commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross, with one saying Ross would “ultimately direct” the incoming administration’s trade policy (see 1612200017). Expect “a much greater team effort” on trade in the new administration, with Ross and others such as Peter Navarro, an adviser appointed by President-elect Donald Trump as director of trade and industrial policy, playing an “instrumental role” and addressing “an agenda and a policy” in this realm, said Spicer. Trump said Tuesday that Jason Greenblatt will be special representative for international negotiations, but that’s a role that will be “bigger than just trade,” Spicer told reporters Wednesday. Trump hasn't named an nominee for the USTR position.

A new joint enforcement effort involving Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Justice Department will target illegal imports of counterfeit consumer electronics, said ICE in a Wednesday announcement. The initiative, called Operation Surge Protector, "will focus on electronics vulnerable to counterfeiting, including phony digital media devices, power adapters and consumer technology powered by lithium ion batteries," said ICE. Government "collaboration with industry and external law-enforcement agencies has revealed that counterfeit electronics are a serious threat to public safety on par with fake pharmaceuticals and bogus automotive parts,” said Peter Edge, executive associate director of ICE Homeland Security Investigations. The intergovernmental Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center decided to review its enforcement work in this area after an increase in seizures of hoverboards and other products that use lithium ion batteries during 2016, said ICE.

The Commerce Department doubled the number of foreign markets within its digital trade attache program, adding France, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea, said the department in a Monday news release. “These digital trade officers serve as dedicated resources for U.S. businesses as they seek to increase exports through global E-commerce channels and navigate digital policy and regulatory issues in foreign markets," said Secretary Penny Pritzker. Officers also will help with navigating digital policy and regulatory issues in the markets, the department said. The program had covered the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Brazil, China, the EU, India and Japan.

The FCC is extending a waiver of Form 740 certification requirements for imported RF devices until June 30, said an Office of Engineering and Technology order. The FCC has been considering its 2015 proposal to eliminate filing at time of entry of importer certifications (see 1607130011). It “does not appear” that the rulemaking will be complete by the time the current waiver of Form 740 filing requirements expires Dec. 31 (see 1510190056), said Thursday's order.

The National Retail Federation forecasts that December imports at the nation’s major retail container ports will be 3.2 percent higher than in December 2015 “as stores bring in the last of the merchandise for the holiday season,” in its monthly global port tracker report. “There’s still shopping to be done, and retailers are making sure the gifts that need to be under a tree are waiting on the shelves,” said Jonathan Gold, vice president-supply chain and customs policy. “Imports are up a healthy amount over this time last year, and that’s a good sign for holiday sales and the economy.” The 11 U.S. ports in the report handled 1.67 million “twenty-foot equivalent units” (TEUs) in October, the latest month for which “after-the-fact numbers are available,” NRF said. That was up 4.6 percent from September and up 7.4 percent from October 2015, it said. One TEU represents one 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent, it said. November was estimated at 1.53 million TEUs, up 3.6 percent from last year, and December is forecast at 1.48 million TEUs, up 3.2 percent, it said. Cargo volume for 2016 is expected to total 18.6 million TEUs, up 2 percent from last year, it said. Total volume for 2015 was 18.2 million TEUs, up 5.4 percent from 2014, it said. Cargo volume “does not correlate directly to sales because only the number of containers is counted, not the value of the cargo inside,” NRF said. Still, the numbers serve as a reliable “barometer of retailers’ expectations,” it said.

Customs and Border Protection ruled a redesign of network switches imported by Arista Networks falls outside of an International Trade Commission limited exclusion order (LEO). The CBP ruled in favor of Arista, which is in litigation with Cisco over patent infringement allegations. The ITC began a formal Tariff Act Section 337 enforcement investigation in October after Cisco filed a complaint that Arista ignored the LEO, which prohibits imports of patent-infringing products (see 1610040060). Based on CBP's highly technical review of the Arista switches and the patents at issue, the agency said "the infringing functionality has been removed and that Arista has carried its burden to establish that the articles in question are not covered by the patents at issue and therefore do not, on this basis, fall within the scope of the LEO." The decision "validates our good-faith efforts to address the ITC’s findings," said Arista General Counsel Marc Taxay in an emailed statement. "We look forward to resuming the importation of our redesigned products.” CBP "issued instructions to the U.S. ports to permit entry of the Company’s redesigned products for consumption and sale in the United States," Arista said in a Nov. 21 SEC filing. This week, Cisco said it remains concerned with redesigned products imported by Arista, noting the first company's CBP complaint said "'the claim of a workaround is a thin veil to cover Arista’s ongoing infringement and convince its customers, many of whom have strongly supported protection of intellectual property rights, that they are buying a product that is non-infringing,'” emailed a spokesman. "The enforcement case continues with an initial ruling expected in June 2017 and the ITC is not bound by the customs decision.”