The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is requesting comments by October 26, 2011, identifying potential Internet and physical markets outside the U.S. that have been the subject of enforcement action or that may merit further investigation for possible intellectual property infringements to be included in its 2011 Notorious Markets List.
On September 16, 2011, U.S. Trade Representative Kirk hosted the sixth meeting of the U.S. - Central Asia Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) Council in Washington, D.C. Attendees included delegations from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan, as well as officials from numerous other U.S. Government agencies. The meeting focused on the importance of reducing or eliminating barriers to trade and investment in Central Asia and facilitating cross-border transactions.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a Federal Register notice on its recent vote to grant a petition requesting it initiate a rulemaking to restrict cadmium in children’s products, especially toy metal jewelry.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a document on in-bond authorization for rail and sea carriers in ACE since the deployment of ACE e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1). The document provides instructions on how to create and maintain a carrier in-bond authorization, grant additional port access to an existing authorized partner, edit date parameters for authorized partners, remove ports from an authorized partner, and remove authorized partners from an account in ACE.
A federal judge jumped the gun in deciding that MP3tunes adequately implemented a “repeat infringer” policy to qualify for safe harbor under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (WID Aug 24 p1), EMI told the U.S. District Court in New York. The label asked Judge William Pauley to reconsider that finding and also Pauley’s assertion in a footnote that the “plain language” of the DMCA showed that the law applies to pre-1972 sound recordings, despite the federal Copyright Act’s explicit exemption of such songs, which fall under various state laws. Pauley’s finding on pre-1972 recordings had been seen by some as a boon to Grooveshark, which is facing an infringement lawsuit from Universal Music Group over pre-1972 recordings (WID Aug 29 p5).
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a proposed rule to restrict the importation of dogs from any part of the world into the continental U.S. or Hawaii for purposes of resale, research, or veterinary treatment, unless the dogs are in good health, have received all necessary vaccinations, and are at least 6 months of age.
A footnote on the applicability of Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbors to pre-1972 songs, from the recent ruling in the MP3tunes copyright infringement case brought by EMI (WID Aug 24 p1), may not be much help to defendant Grooveshark in a related case, a copyright lawyer told us. U.S. District Judge William Pauley in New York said he agreed with MP3tunes that the DMCA safe harbors apply equally to state and federal copyright claims, and thus to songs produced before Feb. 15, 1972. That’s the date before which songs had no federal copyright protection, but rather fell under various state copyright laws. The Pauley footnote had been seen as a boon to Grooveshark, the on-demand music service being sued for infringement of Universal Music Group’s pre-1972 catalog, which includes Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and the Jackson 5. UMG brought the suit in New York Supreme Court, which handles large-dollar civil cases (WID Jan 12/10 p5). A copyright lawyer we queried, who has represented major content companies, said Pauley’s finding about the safe-harbor extension to pre-1972 songs may not “carry much persuasive weight” to the New York state court. Pauley simply stated his conclusion without explaining why he disagreed with EMI’s contention that Section 301 of the Copyright Act -- which protects “any rights or remedies under the common law or statute” of any state until 2067 -- precludes federal safe harbors. “As far as I'm aware, no court had ruled on this issue” until Pauley’s ruling, the lawyer said, noting that neither EMI nor MP3tunes mentioned any case law relevant to their claims. We couldn’t reach Grooveshark to learn whether it saw good news for its own litigation from Pauley’s footnote.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 19 CFR 112.12(a) requires all carriers desiring to be authorized to receive merchandise for transportation in-bond to file with U.S. Customs and Border Protection a bond on CBP Form 301, containing the bond conditions set forth in 19 CFR 113.63, accompanied by a fee of $50.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for August 15-19, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has made available for immediate use new CBP Forms 301 (Customs Bond) and 301A (Addendum for additional co-principals) for continuous and single transaction bonds. The CBP Form 301 has been revised to list additional activity codes, including one for the Importer Security Filing, and to better harmonize the form with current and future automation requirements.