Customs and Border Protection is “grappling” with figuring...

Customs and Border Protection is “grappling” with figuring out whether the “proper placement” for Section 337 Tariff Act patent exclusion order enforcement should remain at headquarters or within the Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEEs), said Therese Randazzo, CBP director of intellectual property rights policy and programs. CEEs, separated by industry, process imports for participants in that CBP program. There’s still work to be done before the agency decides if the enforcement could be better handled at the CEEs, though one CEE has already started to handle such enforcement, she said Friday at the American Conference Institute’s Import Compliance and Enforcement forum. “The enforcement of ‘337 orders still rests with headquarters, with the exception of enforcement orders that are in the electronics sector,” said Randazzo. “The electronics Center for Excellence and Expertise is in fact doing enforcement of those orders, but all the rest are actually in my office.” CBP is tasked with stopping imports named in Section 337 exclusion orders, which the International Trade Commission issues to block imports of infringing products when it finds intellectual property rights violations.