Court Opinion

ID: 9478398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:48:09.971036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:24.748778
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully disagree with the classification of these materials as photographic chemicals.
*1276The toners used in electrostatic printing are neither photographic nor chemicals. They do not work by a chemical process; they undergo or induce no chemical change; they produce no chemical effect. They are totally unlike the “photographic chemicals” reasonably contemplated in the tariff schedules.
Electrostatic copying is a printing process whereby the ink powder is electrostat-ically attracted to the image on the paper. There is no light (“photo”)-induced chemical change. Electro-static printing, using dry inks, does not convert the printing medium into a chemical agent.
Classification of these toners as printing inks or ink powders is consistent with their use and their composition. Thus I would reverse the decision of the Court of International Trade.