## Facts

- Amsted Industries, a U.S. manufacturer of cast steel railway wheels, developed confidential wheel-casting processes known as the “ABC process” and the “Griffin process.”
- Amsted licensed the ABC process to certain Chinese firms, including Datong, and Datong employees were informed by written obligations that the ABC process information was proprietary and confidential.
- TianRui, Chinese wheel manufacturers, unsuccessfully sought a license to Amsted’s technology and then hired nine former Datong employees, some trained on the ABC process.
- The ITC found TianRui induced or permitted those employees to use and disclose the ABC process in TianRui’s Chinese production, and TianRui attempted to import the resulting wheels into the United States.
- Amsted filed a complaint at the ITC under § 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, alleging unfair acts in the importation of articles into the United States.

## Issues

1. Whether § 337 permits the ITC to base a violation on trade secret misappropriation occurring abroad when the resulting goods are imported into the United States.
2. Whether the ITC may find a threatened injury to a domestic industry even if the complainant is not currently practicing the specific trade secret in the United States.
3. Whether the ITC may apply general U.S. trade secret principles (rather than a single state’s law or foreign law) to define “unfair” conduct under § 337.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit affirmed the ITC’s determination that TianRui violated § 337 and upheld the limited exclusion order barring importation of TianRui’s wheels.
- The court held the ITC may consider extraterritorial conduct as part of a § 337 unfair-acts analysis when the conduct is connected to importation and domestic injury.
- The court upheld the ITC’s finding of a threatened injury to a U.S. domestic industry in cast steel wheels, even though Amsted no longer practiced the ABC process domestically.
- The court approved the ITC’s use of general trade secret principles, drawn from U.S. sources such as the Restatement and UTSA, to assess misappropriation as an unfair act under § 337.

## Legal Principles

- Section 337 focuses on unfair acts “in the importation” of articles and injury (or threat of injury) to a domestic industry; the relevant nexus is to importation and domestic harm, not solely the location of the underlying misconduct.
- The ITC may issue exclusionary relief based on foreign trade secret misappropriation when necessary to prevent unfair import competition affecting the U.S. market.
- Trade secret misappropriation qualifies as an “unfair method of competition” or “unfair act” for purposes of § 337.
- A complainant need not be currently practicing the specific trade secret domestically if substantial evidence supports that the challenged imports threaten to destroy or substantially injure a domestic industry in the relevant product market.
- The ITC may use a general, U.S.-based synthesis of trade secret principles to evaluate “unfair” conduct under § 337, and its reasonable statutory interpretation receives administrative deference on review.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit upheld the ITC’s authority under § 337 to exclude imports produced through trade secret misappropriation occurring abroad when tied to importation that threatens a U.S. domestic industry, and it approved the ITC’s use of general U.S. trade secret principles rather than a single jurisdiction’s law.


TianRui Grp. Co. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 661 F.3d 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2011)