United States v. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC., Appeal No. 79-32.

• Citation: 620 F.2d 272
• Decision Date: 17 April 1980
• Docket Number: Appeal No. 79-32.
• Parties: The UNITED STATES, Appellant, v. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

620 F.2d 272

The UNITED STATES, Appellant, v. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED, Appellee.

Appeal No. 79-32.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

April 17, 1980.

Alice Daniel, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D. C., David M. Cohen, Director, Commercial Litigation Branch, Sheila N. Ziff, New York City, attorney of record, for appellant.

Frederick L. Ikenson, Washington, D. C., for appellee.

Henry C. Ikenberry and Gary N. Horlick, Steptoe & Johnson, Washington, D. C., for Tally Industries, amicus curiae.

James F. Davis, John F. Bruce and Frederick H. Graefe, Howrey & Simon, Washington, D. C., attorneys for Timex Corp., amicus curiae.

Ive Arlington Swan, Atty. Gen., of the Virgin Islands and William L. Blum, Legal Counsel to the Virgin Islands, Dept. of Commerce, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, V. I., for Government of the Virgin Islands, amicus curiae.

Eugene A. Ludwig, Covington & Burling, Washington, D. C., attorney of record for American Watch Ass'n, amicus curiae.

Louis Schneider and Herbert Peter Larsen, Freeman, Meade, Wasserman & Schneider, New York City, for General Elec. Co., amicus curiae.

Before MARKEY, Chief Judge, RICH, BALDWIN and MILLER, Judges, and FORD,^* Judge.

MARKEY, Chief Judge.

The Government appeals from the judgment of the Customs Court, Texas Instruments, Inc. v. United States, 82 Cust.Ct. 287, C.D. 4811, 475 F.Supp. 1193 (1979), sustaining Texas Instruments' classification protest relating to imported visible light emitting diode (VLED) display devices used as components in solid state digital watches. Judge Nils A. Boe held classification under item 685.70,¹ "electrical indicator panels or electrical visual signalling apparatus," to be proper. We affirm.

Background

The imported articles, entered from Taiwan in June 1976, are VLED display devices used in solid state electronic watches to display time in digital form. The Customs Service classified them as "watch dials" under TSUS item 720.40.²

The Customs Court held: (1) the articles cannot be classified as watch dials because the watches in which they are used do not contain a watch or clock movement, as required by Schedule 7, Part 2, Subpart E, Headnote 1; (2) that the articles are used in watches does not dictate that this VLED display be classified differently from all other VLED displays, the latter being classified under item 685.70.³

OPINION

We agree with the Customs Court that classification under item 720.40 is improper because the watches in which the articles are used do not contain a watch or clock movement as required by Subpart E, Headnote 1, and that use of the imported article with watches did not require classification different from other VLED displays. The parties stipulated that if classification under item 720.40 were improper, the articles should be classified under item 685.70.⁴

The judgment of the Customs Court is affirmed.

* The Honorable Morgan Ford, Judge, United States Customs Court, sitting by designation.

1 685.70 Bells, sirens, indicator panels, 4% ad val burglar and fire alarms and other sound or...