Court Opinion

ID: 9473455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:30:29.697654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:32.668134
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
On the jurisdiction of the Court of International Trade (CIT), I agree with the court’s opinion, adding only the citation of American Association of Exporters v. United States, 751 F.2d 1239, 1244-46 (Fed.Cir.1985), a recent decision of this court plowing much of the ground of the CIT’s current power.
On the merits, I agree with the majority that the challenged Customs regulation is valid because Customs could properly, for its own administrative and enforcement purposes, provide that it would exclude less than all the trademarked goods that might turn out to be covered by § 1526(a), i.e., that Custom’s own enforcement need not be coterminous with the full reach of that statute as it applies between private persons. Unlike the majority, I find that since 1936 the Customs regulations have been substantially consistent as they apply to imported goods comparable to those Vivitar says should be excluded in its case.
I do not join the court’s opinion mainly because I think it is wholly inappropriate for this court to go further and to delve (as it does extensively in Part III of the majority opinion) into bases for construing § 1526(a) as that legislation applies between private parties. That type of discussion should be left to the district courts and the regional courts of appeals when they are faced with a suit (under 19 U.S.C. § 1526(c), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1338) by the trademark owner against persons dealing in this country in merchandise said to have been imported in violation of § 1526(a). The CIT will never deal with those private-party suits and issues, and this court can reach them only if they happen to be joined with an appealed patent claim. 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1). To me, it is needless and gratuitous for this court, in this international trade case coming from the CIT, to indulge in lengthy dicta bearing on the full scope of § 1526(a), obiter dicta which will not bind any court in a private suit but which simply tends to confuse the trademark bar.
I certainly agree that we should make it clear that the Customs regulation does not necessarily cover the full sweep of § 1526(a), but it is not for us to indicate affirmatively (as the majority does), even in dicta, that that full sweep is actually wider than the regulation. The entire matter should be left to further litigation with which we can only be haphazardly concerned, if at all. All that we hold in this ease is that the Customs regulation is now valid as a Customs enforcement regulation. That is quite enough.