Intellectual property rights enforcement at the border: recordation and Part 133

Intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement is where trademark and copyright law meets the entry process, and the exam tests it as its own topic because the mechanism, recordation, is unique to CBP and does not appear anywhere else in the exam’s coverage. This guide covers how recordation works, what it costs and how long it lasts, and the separate and commonly confused rule for gray market goods. For the marking regime that also governs imported goods but under a different Part, see the country of origin marking guide.

What is recordation, and why does it matter?

Trademark, trade name, and copyright owners can record their rights with CBP under 19 CFR Part 133. Recordation is what turns a private intellectual property right into something CBP can actively enforce at every port: once a mark or copyright is recorded, CBP’s automated systems and import specialists can identify shipments that appear to bear an infringing or counterfeit version of that mark, and detain or seize them, without the rights holder having to spot and report each shipment itself. An unrecorded trademark or copyright still exists as a private right the owner can enforce in court, but it does not get CBP’s active, ongoing border screening; recordation is what activates the government’s enforcement machinery on the rights holder’s behalf.

Part 133 is organized by subject:

Subpart	Covers
A	Trademark recordation (sections 133.1 to 133.7)
B	Trade name recordation (133.11 to 133.15)
C	Restrictions on importation of goods bearing recorded marks or trade names, including the gray-market rule (133.21 to 133.27)
D	Copyright recordation (133.31 to 133.37)
E	Copyright infringement violations at importation (133.41 to 133.46)
F	Anti-circumvention technology measures (133.47 to 133.48)
G	Procedures following forfeiture or damage assessment (133.51 to 133.53)

What does recordation cost, and how long does it last?

19 CFR 133.3 sets the fee: a trademark recordation application must be accompanied by a fee of $190 for each trademark to be recorded, and where a single mark covers multiple International Classes of goods, $190 for each class. A company recording one mark across several product classes pays the fee once per class, which is a specific, testable number.

The term of protection is set by 19 CFR 133.4: recordation remains in force concurrently with the 20-year current registration period (or the last renewal of it) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Recordation is derivative of the underlying USPTO registration in a second way too: it must be canceled if the USPTO trademark registration is finally canceled or revoked. This linkage is the exam-testable core of the recordation mechanism: CBP recordation is not an independent registration system, it is a border-enforcement overlay on a right that must already exist and remain valid at the USPTO (for trademarks) or the Copyright Office (for copyrights).

What is a “restricted gray market article,” and when can it still be imported?

This is the most conceptually tricky part of Part 133, and the exam likes to test the exceptions. 19 CFR 133.23 defines a restricted gray market article as a foreign-made article bearing a genuine trademark or trade name identical with, or substantially indistinguishable from, one owned and recorded by a U.S. party, imported without the authorization of the U.S. trademark owner. The key word is “genuine”: this is not counterfeiting, the mark itself is authentic, but the goods are being imported through an unauthorized channel, commonly called parallel importation or gray market goods.

Restricted gray market articles are generally denied entry and subject to detention, but Part 133 carves out situations where the import is still permitted despite the mark being genuine and the importer unauthorized:

• Common control. The goods qualify if the foreign and U.S. trademark or trade name owners are the same person, or are parent and subsidiary, or are otherwise subject to common ownership or control. The logic is that a company cannot use CBP to block its own affiliate’s goods from a different market.
• Authorized use with a physical-difference disclosure. Goods bearing a mark genuinely applied under the authority of the U.S. owner (or its parent or subsidiary) may still enter if they are physically and materially different from the U.S.-authorized product and carry a label disclosing that difference, using specified label language stating the product is not the U.S.-owner-authorized version and is physically and materially different.

Goods that do not fit either exception face denial of entry and a 30-day period during which the importer may attempt to establish that an exception applies, before the goods proceed to seizure and forfeiture. This 30-day cure window, paired with the two named exceptions, is the structure to memorize: gray market goods are not automatically excluded, but the burden sits with the importer to show common control or a properly disclosed physical difference.

How does this differ from counterfeit goods enforcement?

Restricted gray market goods bear a genuine mark used without authorization. Counterfeit goods bear a spurious mark, identical to or substantially indistinguishable from a registered mark, applied without any authorization from the trademark owner at all. Counterfeit merchandise faces the harsher track: seizure, forfeiture, and, for repeat or serious offenses, civil penalties, and it does not benefit from the common-control or physical-difference exceptions that apply to genuine gray-market goods, because there is no genuine authorized use anywhere in a counterfeit’s chain. Distinguishing “genuine mark, unauthorized channel” (gray market, Subpart C) from “fake mark entirely” (counterfeit, enforced under the same Part but a different legal theory) is the conceptual line the exam is testing when it presents an IPR scenario.

How this shows up on the exam

IPR questions test three things most often: the mechanics of recordation (the $190 fee, the 20-year USPTO-linked term), the gray market exceptions (common control, or physical difference with disclosure), and distinguishing gray market from outright counterfeit goods. Read the fact pattern for whether the mark is genuine or spurious before reaching for an answer, since that single fact determines which subpart and which remedy applies. Drill Part 133 lookups in the navigation trainer and the corpus map, and test recall in the free practice test. For the separate marking regime that also governs the physical goods themselves, see country of origin marking.

Sources: 19 CFR Part 133 (Trademarks, Trade Names, and Copyrights), sections 133.3, 133.4, and 133.23, as published on the Legal Information Institute mirror of the CFR (law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/19), cross-checked against the eCFR (ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-133). Reviewed 2026-07-29. Recordation fees and procedural rules are set by regulation and can change; confirm the current text before relying on it.