This bill expands the ability of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to share nonpublic information regarding suspected intellectual property rights violations with relevant stakeholders.
Charles "Chuck" Grassley
Senator
IA
This bill updates the standard for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to share information regarding suspected intellectual property rights violations in trade. It lowers the threshold for sharing sensitive, nonpublic data about merchandise to include cases where there is only a "reasonable suspicion" of infringement. This allows CBP to provide details to a broader range of interested parties involved with the potentially infringing goods.
Customs Lowers Bar for Sharing Business Data: 'Reasonable Suspicion' Now Triggers IP Enforcement Sharing
This bill updates how U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) handles information when they suspect someone is shipping counterfeit goods or violating intellectual property (IP) rights. Specifically, it lowers the trigger for sharing sensitive information from needing to suspect a violation to only needing a reasonable suspicion of one. This might sound like legal hair-splitting, but it’s a big deal for how trade enforcement works.
The New Threshold: Less Proof, More Sharing
Under current law, CBP had a relatively high bar before sharing nonpublic information about imported goods. This bill changes Section 628A of the Tariff Act of 1930 to allow information sharing based on "reasonable suspicion." Think of it this way: if you’re a brand owner, this change makes it easier and faster for CBP to notify you when they think they’ve found knock-offs. The goal is clear: to turbocharge the fight against counterfeiting by giving IP holders a quicker heads-up.
Who’s Data is on the Table?
This legislation explicitly expands the type of data CBP can share. It includes "nonpublic information about merchandise" that CBP receives from online marketplaces, shipping companies, and freight forwarders. If you work for a logistics company or run an e-commerce platform, your operational data—like shipment origins, manifests, and consignee details—could now be shared more easily. While this helps CBP build a better case against bad actors, it means proprietary business data from third-party logistics providers is now more exposed than before.
The Vague Stakeholders Clause
Perhaps the biggest change is who gets this sensitive information. Previously, it was mostly limited to the rights holders. Now, CBP can share this data with "any other party that has a stake or interest in that specific merchandise," provided the Commissioner thinks it’s appropriate. This is where things get vague. Who exactly is an "interested party"? It could be a manufacturer, a distributor, or even a competitor. For an importer or shipper, this means that sensitive commercial information—details about their supply chain and specific shipments—could potentially be disclosed to a much broader, and currently undefined, group of people at the discretion of the Commissioner. While the intent is to improve enforcement, the risk is that proprietary business secrets could leak out under this vague authority.