Justia International Trade Opinion Summaries

The importers sought refunds of estimated duties they deposited with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for tariffs that the U.S. Trade Representative retroactively rescinded after granting exclusion requests submitted by other importers that covered the same category of products. The Trade Court dismissed the complaints for lack of jurisdiction.The Federal Circuit affirmed. The jurisdictional provision cited by the importers, 28 U.S.C. 1581(i), may not be invoked when jurisdiction under another subsection of 1581 could have been available and would have provided an adequate remedy if timely invoked. Jurisdiction would have been available under section 1581(a) had the importers timely protested Customs’ classification decisions. Failure to invoke an available remedy within the timeframe prescribed does not render the remedy manifestly inadequate. That Customs’ classification decisions became erroneous after USTR granted retroactive exclusions is irrelevant. The obligation to protest a Customs classification error does not turn on whether it was erroneous ab initio or became erroneous because of retroactive administrative action. It turns on whether Customs’ classifications of the importers’ entries were protestable “decisions” under 19 U.S.C. 1514. View "ARP Materials, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

INVT alleged that the importation and sale of personal devices, such as smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets, infringed INVT's patents. An ALJ determined that the accused devices did not infringe claims 3 and 4 of the 590 patent and claims 1 and 2 of the 439 patent and that INVT had failed to meet the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement as to those claims.The International Trade Commission affirmed the finding of no 19 U.S.C. 1337 (section 337) violation. The Federal Circuit affirmed the determination with respect to the 439 patent because INVT failed to show infringement and the existence of a domestic industry. The 439 patent relates to wireless communication systems, specifically an improvement to adaptive modulation and coding, which is a technique used to transmit signals in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system. The asserted 439 claims are drawn to “capability” but for infringement purposes, a computer-implemented claim drawn to a functional capability requires some showing that the accused computer-implemented device is programmed or otherwise configured, without modification, to perform the claimed function when in operation. INVT failed to establish that the accused devices, when put into operation, will ever perform the particular functions recited in the asserted claims. The determination with respect to the 590 patent is moot based on the patent’s March 2022 expiration. View "INVT SPE LLC v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

Commerce initiated a second administrative review of antidumping duties for certain passenger-vehicle and light-truck tires from China and selected two mandatory respondents, Junhon and Haohua as “the top two publicly identifiable exporters/producers of passenger vehicle and light truck tires sold to the United States.” Haohua withdrew. Commerce investigated only Junhong. Commerce issued its Preliminary Results and applied an individual dumping margin of 73.63%, which was then designated as the rate for all of the exporters and producers. In its Final Results. Commerce continued to use only Junhong, for its investigation but reduced the weighted-average dumping margin to 64.57%. The Trade Court held that Commerce’s use of a sole mandatory respondent was a reasonable exercise of agency discretion and sustained Commerce’s decision to exclude Thai import data from India, Indonesia, and South Korea when determining surrogate values for Junhong. The Federal Circuit vacated. Commerce erred in restricting its examination to only one exporter/producer. The statute calls for all respondents to be individually investigated unless the large number makes separate reviews impracticable. This statutory “exception” authorizes the review of a smaller number of exporters or producers than have requested review. Commerce has not demonstrated that it was reasonable to review a single exporter or producer when multiple have requested review and to calculate the all-others rate based on only one respondent. View "Y.C. Rubber Co.(North America), LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

NBA Properties owns the trademarks of the NBA and NBA teams. In 2020, a Properties investigator accessed HANWJH’s online Amazon store and purchased an item, designating an address in Illinois as the delivery destination. The product was delivered to the Illinois address. Properties sued, alleging trademark infringement and counterfeiting, 15 U.S.C. 1114 and false designation of origin, section 1125(a). Properties obtained a TRO and a temporary asset restraint on HANWJH’s bank account, then moved for default; despite having been served, HANWJH had not answered or otherwise defended the suit. HANWJH moved to dismiss, arguing that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over it because it did not expressly aim any conduct at Illinois. HANWJH maintained that it had never sold any other product to any consumer in Illinois nor had it any “offices, employees,” “real or personal property,” “bank accounts,” or any other commercial dealings with Illinois.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss and the entry of judgment in favor of Properties. HANWJH shipped a product to Illinois after it structured its sales activity in such a manner as to invite orders from Illinois and developed the capacity to fill them. HANWJH’s listing of its product on Amazon.com and its sale of the product to counsel are related sufficiently to the harm of likelihood of confusion. Illinois has an interest in protecting its consumers from purchasing fraudulent merchandise. HANWJH alleges no unusual burden in defending the suit in Illinois. View "NBA Properties, Inc. v. HANWJH" on Justia Law

Meyer imports cookware. Each cookware item manufactured in Thailand began as a steel disc imported from China. In Thailand, the manufacturer transforms the discs into finished cookware and sells finished cookware to distributors in Macau and Hong Kong. The manufacturers, distributors, and Meyer have a common parent/shareholder.Meyer requested duty-free treatment for the cookware produced in Thailand, based on Thailand’s status as a beneficiary developing country under the Generalized System of Preferences. Meyer also asked Customs to value its cookware based on the first-sale price that its affiliated distributors paid to the manufacturers. Customs denied duty-free treatment and assessed duties based on the second-sale price that Meyer paid to its distributors. The Court of International Trade ruled that raw materials from nonbeneficiary developing countries must undergo a “double substantial transformation” in the beneficiary developing country to count toward duty-free treatment and the manufacturer did not substantially transform the input a second time by converting the shell into a finished pot; Meyer failed to show that an unfinished shell is a “distinct article of commerce.”The Federal Circuit affirmed in part. The Trade Court properly found only one substantial transformation but erred in requiring Meyer to prove that the first sales were at arm’s length and also unaffected by China’s status as a non-market economy. The court remanded for reconsideration of whether Meyer may rely on its first-sale prices. View "Meyer Corp., U.S. v. United States" on Justia Law

Acting under the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (ECRA) the Department of Commerce has maintained a so-called Entity List to restrict designated foreign parties from receiving United States exports.   Plaintiff, Changji Esquel Textile Co, operates a spinning mill in Xinjiang. The United States has determined that China abuses the human rights of Uyghurs and other religious or ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, including imprisonment and forced labor. Changji and its parent company filed a lawsuit alleging that the Department, in adding Changji to the Entity List, violated ECRA and its implementing regulations, the APA, and the Due Process Clause. They moved for a preliminary injunction on the theory that the alleged ECRA and regulatory violations were ultra vires. The district court denied the motion on the ground that Plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on this claim.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court explained that to prevail on an ultra vires claim, Plaintiff must establish three things: “(i) the statutory preclusion of review is implied rather than express; (ii) there is no alternative procedure for review of the statutory claim; and (iii) the agency plainly acts in excess of its delegated powers and contrary to a specific prohibition in the statute that is clear and mandatory.   The court explained that the canons invoked by Plaintiffs can resolve statutory ambiguity in close cases, but they do not allow the court to discern any clear and mandatory prohibition on adding entities to the List for human-rights abuses, particularly given the breadth of section 4813(a)(16) and the deference owed to the Executive Branch in matters of foreign affairs. View "Changji Esquel Textile Co. Ltd. v. Gina Raimondo" on Justia Law

Philips and Thales design and manufacture telecommunications equipment and related technologies, including those related to various generations of wireless networks. Philips and Thales have been engaged in negotiations over what Philips asserts are standard essential patents (SEPs) that Thales has implemented according to European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) specifications. After negotiations did not yield an agreed-upon fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) license for the SEPs, Philips filed an infringement and declaratory action against Thales in the District of Delaware and an International Trade Commission (ITC) action seeking an exclusion order. Thales filed a breach of contract counterclaim and declaratory counterclaim for a FRAND rate determination and moved for a preliminary injunction barring Philips from pursuing its ITC action.The Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of Thales’ motion. The district court did not clearly err in determining that Thales’ evidence of harm was conclusory and that it failed to meet its burden of establishing likely irreparable harm. Thales did not present any evidence that it lost customers, had customers delay purchases, or struggled to acquire new business because of the ongoing ITC proceedings. View "Koninklijke Philips N.V. v. Thales DIS AIS Deutschland GMBH" on Justia Law

In its ninth administrative review of its antidumping order regarding certain steel nails from China, the Department of Commerce relied on adverse facts available (AFA) in calculating antidumping rates for two mandatory respondents. For Shandong, Commerce relied on total AFA to compute a rate of 118.04% because Shandong did not cooperate at all with Commerce’s investigation. For Dezhou, Commerce relied on partial AFA to compute a rate of 69.99% because it found that Dezhou’s supplier engaged in a fraudulent transshipment scheme and that this misconduct was attributable to Dezhou. Commerce then used those AFA-based rates to compute its all-others rate (the rate applied to all exporters of the subject merchandise who requested a separate rate but whom Commerce did not select as mandatory respondents).The Trade Court and Federal Circuit affirmed. During an initial investigation, Commerce must generally set the all-others rate equal to the weighted average of the mandatory respondents’ individual dumping margins, excluding any margins determined entirely on AFA, 19 U.S.C. 1673d(c)(5)(A); no such provision exists concerning administrative reviews. Commerce acted reasonably in adopting a new sampling methodology because it found that smaller exporters were behaving differently than larger exporters and that AFA-based margins yield an all-others rate representative of the exporters as a whole. View "Shanxi Hairui Trade Co., Ltd. v. United States" on Justia Law

Lam began working at Springs as its senior manager of global trade in 2019. She learned that three of Springs’s manufacturing facilities in Mexico were inaccurately tracking import and export inventories because computer systems were not properly integrated. While attempting to resolve the issue, Lam came to believe that a product Springs imported (cellular fabric blankets) originated in China and not, as the supplier insisted, in Taiwan and Malaysia. Fabrics originating in China were subject to a 25 percent tariff. She claims that she repeatedly stated that the company would need to pay higher tariffs, was “angrily berated,” and was told to continue classifying the fabrics as Taiwanese and Malaysian. She was placed on a performance improvement plan that cited her failure to adequately address the inventory problem, her failure to supplement tariff concerns with a “risk assessment,” a “solution,” or a “process change,” her reliance on outside consultants; and her inability to communicate concisely.Law was ultimately fired and sued, alleging that Springs retaliated against her, in violation of the False Claims Act, over her opinion that the company owed the 25 percent tariff, 31 U.S.C. 3730(h). The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of Springs. Springs’s conduct falls short of “harassment” under section 3730(h)(1); Lam has not established a connection between the tariff violations she reported and the decision to fire her. View "Lam-Quang-Vinh v. Springs Window Fashions, LLC" on Justia Law

The Trade Expansion Act authorizes the President to adjust imports if he concurs with a determination by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce “that an article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security” and to “determine the nature and duration” of the corrective action, 19 U.S.C. 1862(c)(1)(A). In a 2018 report, the Secretary determined that excessive steel imports threatened to impair national security. The President concurred and issued proclamations that imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports from several countries.The Court of International Trade rejected arguments that the President’s and Secretary’s finding of a threat to national security and the President’s imposition of a tariff for an indefinite duration conflicted with the statute. The Federal Circuit affirmed. While claims that the President’s actions violated the statutory authority delegated by section 1862 are reviewable, the President cannot be sued directly to challenge his threat determination. The Secretary’s threat determination is a reviewable final action, as a predicate to the President’s authority, but is reviewable only for compliance with the statute and not under the arbitrary and capricious standard. The court rejected an argument that the President failed to satisfy 1862(c)(1)(A)'s “nature and duration” requirement." View "USP Holdings, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law