Dell Products, LP v. United States, No. 10-1451 (Fed. Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseDell manufactures and sells secondary batteries for laptop computers, which may be packaged with new computers, at the option of the customer. The batteries at issue were admitted separately from computers into Dell’s Foreign Trade Sub-Zone (“FTZ”) in Nashville with “non-privileged foreign status,” meaning that they had not been cleared by Customs and would be appraised for tariff purposes at the time of their formal entry into the United States. Dell proposed to classify secondary batteries that were packaged with computers as duty-free “portable digital automatic data processing [“ADP”] machines,” the ordinary classification for laptop computers. Customs classified the batteries as "other storage batteries," not “goods put up in sets for retail sale” with the computers. The Court of International Trade upheld the designation. The Federal Circuit affirmed, noting that the computer and battery may be packaged and shipped to the customer together, but are not packaged as a single unit for retail sale. There is nothing anomalous about classification of an article depending on the manner in which it is combined or associated with other related articles that are imported with it.
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