CAFC Affirms CIT's Order To Release Certain Refurbished Disposable Cameras for Entry
In Jazz Photo Corporation v. United States and Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., the CAFC affirmed the CIT's order that Customs release for entry certain Jazz disposable cameras from two shipments and allow Jazz to complete the process of segregating the two shipments of disposable cameras under the supervision of Customs. (Customs had excluded the two shipments based on a General Exclusion Order issued by the International Trade Commission to prevent imports which infringe Fuji's patent.)
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According to the ITC, all of the disposable cameras were initially manufactured by Fuji or one of its licensees and, after being used by consumers and collected following photo processing, were processed in China by Polytech Enterprise Limited. The processing included fitting the disposable camera with, among other things, shells, some of which Polytech obtained from Photo Recycling Enterprise, Inc. and others that Jazz acquired from another company. The refurbished cameras processed using different shells were identified separately in Jazz's inventory control system.
The CAFC upheld the CIT's decision that the shipments of the Photo Recycling-shelled refurbished disposable cameras should be released by Customs for entry, as the use of Photo Recycling's shells constituted the cameras first being sold in the U.S. and permissibly repaired, and the identification by shell distinction constituted an appropriate need for segregation.
CIT Slip Op. 04-146 (dated 11/17/04) available at http://www.cit.uscourts.gov:8080/cs.html?charset=iso-8859-1&url=http%3A//www.cit.uscourts.gov/slip_op/Slip_op04/04-146%2520Public.pdf&qt=04-146&col=uscit&n=1&la=en
CAFC Docket 05-1332 (dated 03/06/06) available athttp://www.fedcir.gov/opinions/05-1096.pdf