Filing a Section 337 Complaint for Trademark or Trade Dress Infringement: A Practitioner's Guide
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on Section 337, and it assumes you know why an exclusion order reaches goods rather than people. It builds an International Trade Commission complaint and carries it through to an enforceable order in fourteen stages, beginning with the go/no-go analysis that should precede any commitment and ending with the enforcement work that determines whether the order actually stops anything at a port. Its center is the evidence assembly that must be substantially complete before filing - importation proof for every respondent, the domestic industry record on both prongs, and the pattern-of-violation showing that a general exclusion order requires - because the Commission's schedule leaves no room to develop it afterward. It supplies model complaint sections, a respondent-identification protocol built around test purchases and customs data, a compressed discovery plan, guidance on the public interest submission that complainants under-prepare, and a realistic budget. The final stages cover the redesign and advisory-opinion cycle that follows almost every order.
IP and Technology > Trademarks | Guide | Published 13 February 2026 - Updated 25 February 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on Section 337, and it assumes you know why an exclusion order reaches goods rather than people. It builds an International Trade Commission complaint and carries it through to an enforceable order in fourteen stages, beginning with the go/no-go analysis that should precede any commitment and ending with the enforcement work that determines whether the order actually stops anything at a port. Its center is the evidence assembly that must be substantially complete before filing — importation proof for every respondent, the domestic industry record on both prongs, and the pattern-of-violation showing that a general exclusion order requires — because the Commission's schedule leaves no room to develop it afterward. It supplies model complaint sections, a respondent-identification protocol built around test purchases and customs data, a compressed discovery plan, guidance on the public interest submission that complainants under-prepare, and a realistic budget. The final stages cover the redesign and advisory-opinion cycle that follows almost every order.
Keywords: section 337 complaint drafting · domestic industry evidence · economic prong documentation · technical prong trademark · general exclusion order showing · pattern of violation evidence · respondent identification · importation evidence · pre-institution review · alj procedural schedule · itc discovery compressed · evidentiary hearing preparation · public interest submission · bond during presidential review · cbp enforcement package · redesign advisory opinion · enforcement proceeding · parallel district court stay · itc budget
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