On January 2, 2011, the President signed into law H.R. 847, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. As enacted, H.R. 847 contains a new excise tax on foreign procurement which was opposed by several trade groups.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a notice requesting comments to assist it in identifying countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection for its 2011 “Special 301” review.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on its December 22, 2010 request for World Trade Organization consultations with China regarding certain subsidies provided by the China on wind power equipment.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a final rule, effective June 28, 2011, that establishes new mandatory consumer product safety standards for full-size and non-full-size baby cribs, as required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA1).
U.S. Trade Representative Kirk has announced that the U.S. has requested consultations with China under the dispute settlement provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning a program known as the Special Fund for Wind Power Manufacturing.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a final rule to establish a publicly available and searchable database on CPSC’s Web site of consumer product safety incidents (and incidents involving other products and substances regulated by CPSC), as required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA).
EGames is still evaluating its “options to fund future operations” if the company is unable to become cash flow positive in the coming quarters, it said Monday, reporting mixed results for Q1 ended Sept. 30. The company had $301,000 in cash at the end of Q1, down from $627,000 June 30, it said. Q1 revenue grew 23.4 percent from a year earlier to $859,000. The loss widened to $350,032, 3 cents a share, from $161,651, 1 cent. EGames posted losses in its last six fiscal years and doesn’t have access to a credit facility now, it said. The company is “encouraged by the continued increases in our traditional product revenues due to strong sales of our physical products at the large national retail chain stores in North America,” said CEO Jerry Klein. The company was “challenged by the general market conditions and trends in our industry that have decreased our Internet-related revenues as well as our licensing revenues,” he said. EGames continues “to forge ahead with our social game development and distribution strategy, with the launch of our next two social games,” Satisfashion and Coffee Central, he said. Those games are “expected” to launch “by the end of this year on the major Latin American social networks,” he said. EGames has two other social games in development that it plans to release this fiscal year, he said. “The free-to-play micro-transaction model used for social games has been substantiated as a sustainable and profitable business model while social games continue to grow in popularity.” The company’s “plan is to maintain our focus on this segment of the market and develop top-performing games,” said Klein. The $163,000 increase in Q1 revenue was driven by an increase in traditional product revenue “traceable to an improvement in retail distribution of our titles at the major North American retailers compared to” Q1 of last year, the company said. The widened loss was caused by a $132,000 increase in operating expenses, as well as a $56,000 decline in gross profit due to a 17.9 percent lower gross profit margin, it said. The increased operating expenses came from $168,000 in increased product development expenses related to having four games under development for Latin American social networks and a game under development for the iPhone this year, compared to only two titles in development in the year-earlier quarter, as well as $36,000 in decreased operating expenses across various categories, it said. The company said the decline in gross profit margin was caused by a larger proportion of revenue coming from physical product shipments of PC games versus licensing and Internet revenue having no related product cost, as well as a provision for inventory obsolescence due to writing off the value of excess print inventory of PC game titles discontinued at North American retailers.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a proposed rule to amend 7 CFR Part 319 to remove the exemption that allows wood packaging material derived from Canadian trees to enter the U.S. without first meeting the ISPM 15-based treatment and marking requirements1 that APHIS applies to WPM from all other countries.
The Food and Drug Administration has issued a notice announcing that the Food Advisory Committee will hold an open meeting regarding children’s consumption of synthetic color additives in food and adverse effects on behavior.
The Office of Management and Budget approved for three years changes to FCC Forms 301, 314, 315 and 316, said an FCC notice in the Federal Register. The forms deal with rural FM and AM radio stations and provide Native Americans with new opportunities to acquire radio authorizations, and they clarified some filing requirements for AM modification proposals, the Fletcher Heald law firm wrote on its blog.