Study guide
10.5 Intellectual Property Rights Border Enforcement (19 CFR Part 133)
U.S. Customs Broker License Examination CBLE
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1 Chapter 1: Exam Logistics, Eligibility, and Professional Governance
1.1 CBLE Examination Format, Scoring, and Category Structure 1.2 Eligibility Requirements, Application Procedures, and License Issuance 1.3 Triennial Status Reporting and Continuing Education Requirements 1.4 Statutory Fees, Application Vetting, and Appeals of Adverse Decisions
2 Chapter 2: Harmonized Tariff Schedule Classification Principles
2.1 HTSUS Structure, Legal Hierarchy, and Chapter Notes 2.2 General Rules of Interpretation 1 through 4 2.3 GRIs 5 and 6 and Classification Doctrines 2.4 Chapter 98 Special Classification Provisions 2.5 CBP Rulings, CROSS, and Classification Research (19 CFR Part 177) 2.6 Textile and Apparel Classification (Section XI)
3 Chapter 3: Customs Valuation and Appraisement
3.1 The Valuation Hierarchy and Price Actually Paid or Payable 3.2 Statutory Additions and Exclusions from Transaction Value 3.3 Related-Party Transactions and First Sale for Export 3.4 Alternative Valuation Methods: Deductive, Computed, and Fallback 3.5 Allowances for Shortage, Damage, Casualty, and Abandonment (19 CFR Part 158) 3.6 The Rate of Duty Date and the Entered Value Declaration
4 Chapter 4: Right to Make Entry, Documentation, and Entry Procedures
4.1 Right to Make Entry and Customs Power of Attorney 4.2 Entry Filing, Immediate Delivery, and CBP Form 3461 4.3 Entry Summary, CBP Form 7501, and Automated Commercial Environment 4.4 Entry Types, Informal Entry, and In-Bond Transit 4.5 Commercial Invoice and Entry Documentation Requirements (19 CFR Part 141, Subpart F) 4.6 Importer of Record Numbers, CBP Form 5106, and Schedule D Port Codes 4.7 The Practical Exercise: Working a 7501, an Invoice, and a 5106 Under Time Pressure 4.8 Examination, Detention, Conditional Release, and Redelivery
5 Chapter 5: Customs Bonds and Revenue Protection
5.1 Customs Bond Structure, Parties, and Legal Obligations 5.2 Continuous vs. Single Transaction Bonds and Activity Codes 5.3 Bond Formula Calculations, Sufficiency, and Breach
6 Chapter 6: Liquidation, Protests, and Post-Summary Adjustments
6.1 Liquidation Process, Bulletin Notice, and Statutory Deemed Liquidation 6.2 Administrative Protests and Judicial Review 6.3 Post Summary Corrections and Reconciliation
7 Chapter 7: Country of Origin, Marking Rules, and Trade Agreements
7.1 Substantial Transformation and Origin Determination 7.2 Country of Origin Marking and Exceptions 7.3 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) 7.4 Other Free Trade Agreements and Preference Programs
8 Chapter 8: Customs Duties, Taxes, User Fees, and Trade Remedies
8.1 Duty Calculations: Ad Valorem, Specific, Compound, and Column Rates 8.2 Customs User Fees: Merchandise Processing Fee and Harbor Maintenance Fee 8.3 Trade Remedy Measures: Antidumping, Countervailing, Section 301, and Section 232
9 Chapter 9: Customs Broker Licensure, Operations, and Compliance
9.1 Broker Licensing, National Permits, and Office Supervision 9.2 Responsible Supervision and Control 9.3 Broker Duties, Diligence, Funds Handling, and Prohibited Relations 9.4 Recordkeeping, Customs Audits, and Disciplinary Sanctions 9.5 "Customs Business" Defined and Unlicensed Practice 9.6 Change Notifications and Broker Employee Reporting (19 CFR 111.28(b), 111.30)
10 Chapter 10: Special Regimes, Drawback, Enforcement, and Partner Government Agencies
10.1 Foreign Trade Zones and Customs Bonded Warehouses 10.2 Duty Drawback: Manufacturing and Unused Merchandise 10.3 Customs Enforcement, Section 1592 Penalties, and Prior Disclosure 10.4 Partner Government Agencies and Border Security Compliance 10.5 Intellectual Property Rights Border Enforcement (19 CFR Part 133)
11 Chapter 11: Quota Administration and the Rotating Specialty Category
11.1 Absolute and Tariff-Rate Quotas: Definitions, Establishment, and Administration 11.2 Quota Priority, the Opening Moment, and Prorating 11.3 Quota Interactions: Foreign Trade Zones, Warehouses, Visas, and Bonds
10.5 Intellectual Property Rights Border Enforcement (19 CFR Part 133)
Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI
19 CFR Part 133 governs the recordation of trademarks, trade names, and copyrights with CBP and the enforcement actions that recordation enables.
Merchandise bearing a counterfeit mark — a spurious mark identical with or substantially indistinguishable from a recorded registered mark — is subject to seizure and forfeiture; merchandise bearing a merely confusingly similar mark is denied entry and may be permitted to be exported after the mark is removed.
Once CBP detains suspect merchandise it may disclose limited information and provide samples to the recorded right holder to obtain assistance in determining whether the goods are counterfeit or infringing, and a bond may be required under the Activity Code 8 conditions of 19 CFR 113.70.
Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 supports USITC exclusion orders that CBP enforces at the border; 19 CFR 113.74 sets the bond conditions indemnifying a complainant where goods enter under bond during the Presidential review period.
Gray market goods — genuine articles imported without the U.S. right holder's authorization — are treated under the restricted gray market provisions rather than as counterfeits, and the common control and Lever-rule exceptions determine admissibility.
Last updated: September 2026
10.5 Intellectual Property Rights Border Enforcement (19 CFR Part 133)
Where this fits: intellectual property is an admissibility question, not a revenue question. It sits alongside marking, forced labor, and partner government agency holds as one of the reasons CBP will stop otherwise properly classified and appraised merchandise. Broker Compliance and Entry/Entry Summary questions both draw on it, because a broker's duty of diligence under 19 CFR 111.29 and the prohibition on false information in 19 CFR 111.32 extend to what the broker knows about the authenticity of the goods it declares.
Recordation: the Gateway to Enforcement (19 CFR Part 133)
CBP enforces private intellectual property rights only where the owner has brought them to CBP's attention. Part 133 provides for the recordation of:
Right Prerequisite Where Recorded
Trademark Registration on the Principal Register of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office CBP, on application under 19 CFR Part 133, Subpart A
Trade name Use for at least six months to identify a manufacturer or trader CBP, on application under 19 CFR Part 133, Subpart B
Copyright Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office CBP, on application under 19 CFR Part 133, Subpart D
Recordation is what puts the mark or work into CBP's targeting systems and what entitles the owner to the procedural benefits described below. An unrecorded registered trademark is enforceable in court but does not trigger border enforcement.
The Central Distinction: Counterfeit Versus Confusingly Similar
This is the distinction the exam is built on, because the consequences diverge completely.
Counterfeit Marks
A counterfeit mark is a spurious mark that is identical with, or substantially indistinguishable from , a registered mark recorded with CBP. Merchandise bearing a counterfeit mark is seized and, in the ordinary case, forfeited . The importer does not get the option of removing the mark and entering the goods. CBP may also:
Assess a civil fine against any person who directed, assisted financially or otherwise, or aided and abetted the importation;
Dispose of the forfeited merchandise, which for counterfeits ordinarily means destruction, with narrow exceptions permitting donation after obliteration of the mark where the right holder consents and the goods are not a health or safety hazard.
Confusingly Similar Marks
Merchandise bearing a mark that copies or simulates a recorded mark — close enough to be confusing but not substantially indistinguishable — is denied entry , not seized outright. Here the importer has options: the merchandise may be permitted to be exported or destroyed , and in appropriate cases may be entered after the offending mark is removed or obliterated under CBP supervision.
Counterfeit Mark Confusingly Similar Mark
Standard Identical with, or substantially indistinguishable from, a recorded registered mark Copies or simulates a recorded mark
CBP action Seizure and forfeiture Denial of entry
Importer's options Very limited; forfeiture and ordinarily destruction Export, destroy, or remove the mark and enter
Civil fine exposure Yes, against those who directed, assisted, or aided and abetted the importation Not on the same basis
THE EXAM HINGE: When a question describes a mark as "identical" or "substantially indistinguishable," the answer is seizure. When it describes the mark as merely "similar," "resembling," or "likely to cause confusion," the answer is denial of entry with the option to export or to remove the mark. Reading the adjective carefully is the whole task.
Detention, Disclosure, and Samples
When CBP suspects that detained merchandise bears a counterfeit or infringing mark, it needs the right holder's help to make the call. Part 133 authorizes a controlled disclosure:
CBP may notify the recorded right holder of the detention and disclose limited information about the merchandise — the kind, the quantity, the country of origin, the ports, and images or the mark itself — to obtain assistance in determining whether the goods are counterfeit or infringing.
CBP may provide a sample of the suspect merchandise to the right holder for examination or testing.
To protect the importer's interest in the sample, CBP may require the right holder to furnish a bond to indemnify the importer against loss or damage resulting from the furnishing of the sample. Those bond conditions are set out in 19 CFR 113.70 and correspond to bond activity code 8 .
For the importer, the practical point is that a detention for suspected IPR infringement is a window in which to produce evidence of authorization — a license, a distribution agreement, or proof that the mark is the importer's own — before the matter hardens into a seizure.
Copyright Enforcement
The copyright track under Part 133, Subpart D runs on a similar recordation model, and the border test is whether the merchandise is a piratical copy — an unauthorized copy or substantial reproduction of a recorded copyrighted work. Piratical copies are subject to seizure and forfeiture. Where the question of substantial similarity is genuinely disputed, Part 133 provides an administrative procedure in which CBP gives notice to the importer and the copyright owner, receives submissions from both, and decides admissibility.
Section 337 Exclusion Orders
Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 gives the U.S. International Trade Commission authority to investigate unfair acts in importation — most commonly patent, trademark, or trade secret infringement — and to issue exclusion orders that CBP enforces at the border. Two features matter for customs practice:
CBP is the enforcement arm, not the adjudicator. Where an exclusion order covers the merchandise, CBP refuses entry. Questions of the order's scope go back to the USITC.
Entry under bond during the Presidential review period. A USITC exclusion order is subject to a 60-day Presidential review period, during which merchandise may in some circumstances be entered under bond. 19 CFR 113.74 sets out the bond conditions that indemnify a complainant under Section 337 — protecting the party who obtained the order if the goods enter during the review period and the order later becomes final.
Gray Market Goods
A gray market article is a genuine article bearing a genuine mark, manufactured abroad by or under authority of the mark owner, imported into the United States without the authorization of the U.S. mark owner. Because the article is genuine, it is not counterfeit, and the counterfeit seizure rules do not apply. Part 133 instead treats these under the restricted gray market provisions, and admissibility turns on a set of relationships and exceptions:
Common control exception. Where the foreign and U.S. trademark owners are the same entity, or are parent and subsidiary, or are otherwise subject to common ownership or control, the restriction generally does not apply and the goods may enter.
Authorized use. Where the U.S. owner authorized the use of the mark abroad, the goods are generally admissible.
The physical and material differences exception (the Lever rule). Even where common control exists, goods that are physically and materially different from the authorized U.S. version may be restricted unless they bear a conspicuous label advising the consumer that the product is not authorized by the U.S. trademark owner and differs from the authorized product.
- Scenario Treatment
- Spurious mark, identical or substantially indistinguishable Counterfeit — seizure and forfeiture
- Mark copies or simulates a recorded mark Denied entry; may export, destroy, or remove the mark
- Genuine goods, no common control, no authorization Restricted gray market — denied entry
- Genuine goods, common control or authorized use Generally admissible
Genuine goods, common control, but physically and materially different from the U.S. version Restricted unless conspicuously labeled (the Lever rule)
The Broker's Position
A broker confronted with facts suggesting counterfeit merchandise cannot simply file the entry as instructed. Three obligations converge:
19 CFR 111.29 — diligence in preparing and filing documents and in inquiring into the correctness of the facts;
19 CFR 111.32 — a prohibition on knowingly imparting false, deceptive, or misleading information to CBP; and
19 CFR 111.39 — a duty to advise the client promptly of noncompliance, error, or omission.
The broker is not required to report a client's past noncompliance to CBP, but it may not participate in an ongoing violation. Filing an entry the broker knows declares counterfeit merchandise as genuine is participation, and it exposes the broker to penalties under 19 U.S.C. § 1592 in addition to the Part 111 consequences.