Opinion ID: 210012
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Chip Placers

Text: On appeal, Fuji argues that the Court of International Trade improperly classified the chip placers by misconstruing the meaning of lifting and handling. Fuji also claims that the court improperly relied on the rejected more than test. Fuji finally argues that the court improperly applied a residual tariff provision to the chip placers rather than a heading that more specifically describes the imports and their functionality. That improper application of a residual tariff provision, Fuji argues, was the result of the court's failure to apply a relative specificity analysis as required by precedent. The government responds that the Court of International Trade did not apply the more than test in classifying the chip placers, but instead classified them according to their principal function. The court found the chip placers' principal function to be the assembly of PCAs, not lifting and handling. The government argues that finding was not clearly erroneous. According to the government, the court did not need to resort to the rule of specificity in this case because heading 8479 is the only heading under which the chip placers can be classified, and the rule applies only when two or more headings are applicable. We agree with the government that the Court of International Trade correctly classified the chip placers under subheading 8479.89.9797. The relevant portions of the HTSUS read as follows: 8428 Other lifting, handling, loading or unloading machinery (for example, elevators, escalators, conveyers, teleferics):    8428.90.00 Other machinery            8479 Machines and mechanical appliances having individual functions, not specified or included elsewhere in this chapter; parts thereof:    8479.89 Other: Electromechanical electric motor;    8479.89.97 Other    8479.89.9797 Other    8479.90 Parts:    8479.90.95 Other    8479.90.9595 Other Fuji argues that we should classify the chip placers under subheading 8428.90.00, rather than the subheading under which the court classified them, 8479.89.9797. We disagree. It is undisputed that the chip placers in this case perform lifting and handling functions as recited in Heading 8428: they lift the blank PCBs from the conveyor belt and handle them in such a way that the electrical components are properly placed on them. However, the chip placers are not used merely for the purpose of lifting and handling PCBs; they must also properly align, retrieve, and place specific electrical components on the PCBs. HTSUS Chapter 84, Note 7, Paragraph 1 is instructive on classification of merchandise with multiple purposes under Chapter 84: A machine which is used for more than one purpose is, for the purposes of classification, to be treated as if its principal purpose were its sole purpose. Thus, for purposes of HTSUS Chapter 84, the principal purpose of the goods determines their tariff classification. The Court of International Trade determined that the principal purpose of the chip placers is to perform an active and integral role in making PCAs. Fuji, at . We do not find that conclusion to be clearly erroneous. In light of that finding, and Note 7, the chip placers must be classified as if their sole purpose was making PCAs. Heading 8428, the classification urged by Fuji, does not address that function and therefore is not the correct classification heading for the chip placers. The notes to Chapter 84 then direct us to what is the proper heading for the chip placers. For merchandise classified under Chapter 84 whose principal purpose is not described in any of the subheadings within that chapter, heading 8479 is the proper classification. See HTSUS Chapter 84, Note 7, ¶ 2 (stating a machine the principal purpose of which is not described in any heading . . . is . . . to be classified in heading No. 84.79.). Thus, only one heading, 8479, applies to the chip placers, and we therefore need not apply a relative specificity analysis in this case. See HTSUS GRI 3(a). Fuji also claims that the Court of International Trade erred in applying the more than doctrine, a doctrine employed prior to the creation of HTSUS that examined whether a machine performed more than the purposes detailed in the relevant Customs classification. See JVC Co. of Am. v. United States, 234 F.3d 1348, 1354 (Fed. Cir.2000) (determining that the statutorily-prescribed, comprehensive, and systematic method of classification set forth in the GRIs supplants the judicially-created `more than' doctrine and precludes its applicability to cases arising under the HTSUS). Such an argument fails, however, because the court did not, as Fuji argues, employ the more than doctrine. Instead, the court properly found and applied the principal function of the chip placers. Fuji, at . We therefore affirm the Court of International Trade's classification of the chip placers.