Re: US Supreme Court: Parallel Imports of copyrighted goods are OK

Quite the contrary, that is exactly the point: there is no affiliate exception in the copyright laws. It may therefore be used as a tool to stop the sale of parallel imports in situations where trademark fails to bar importation because of lack of Lever/Nestle material difference. I suggest you take a look at Givenchy v. C and C Beauty Sales and Givenchy v. Drug Emporium, which the technical holding of Quality King leaves standing.

Also, you may be interested to know that one of the interesting things about 19 USC 1526 (thanks for your correction) is that there used to be some confusion in the courts (ultimately moot due to K Mart) over whether section 526 was a true trade statute; both the DC Circuit and the Court of International Trade had asserted jurisdiction over Customs' interpretation of that section. Compare Vivitar Corp. v. United States (fed. cir.) with the COPIAT case in the DC Circuit.

--Chris

Christopher A. Mohr
<chrismohr[_at_]sprintmail.com> Received on Sun Mar 15 1998 - 00:40:45 GMT