International Law

This post is part of a multipart series designed to help right holders and importers better understand the opportunities and obligations that attach to intellectual property rights (IPR) in the international trade regulatory environment.

The first installment in this series is on trademarks, and is split into two parts. Part 1 explored infringement levels recognized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and their accompanying enforcement regimes. In Part 2, we complete the trademark-trade picture by discussing enforcement relief options and presenting best practice tips for both right holders and importers.

Subsequent installments in the series will examine the protection and compliance strategies that correspond to copyrights and patents under U.S. trade law.  

I. Enforcement Relief and Trademarks

Assuming the gravity of a trademark infringement does not rise to the level of a criminal referral, both remission and mitigation/cancelation relief is, on a case-by-case basis, available. The authority for this

Is China the answer? This is the title of a 2013 Caribbean Business article in which I was quoted (sorry, no links available!). As it did back then, the question is one that must be answered with another question: “The answer to what?” The context in which the question is answered, however, has changed dramatically in the nine years since that article was published.

The article’s publication date is September 26, 2013. Those were the early days of the Xi Jinping era, when there was still much speculation about what Xi’s leadership would bring. For most foreign businesses, there was little to suggest things would significantly change, as far as their China aspirations went. If anything, a little optimism was in order, with suggestions in Western media that Xi might be a reformer:

Can Xi reform the system, without – like Gorbachev – destroying it? He has advantages that Gorbachev