CBP eRecordation Program Update: What Rights Holders and Importers Should Watch After CBP’s August 2026 Briefing 

CBP’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Branch briefed eRecordation holders on August 27, 2026 on changes to the recordation application, future expanded pre-seizure disclosure authority, pending legislation, and an enforcement posture that has to consequence delivery, especially collecting penalties for IP violations. This article updates our earlier overview of CBP’s recordation program and identifies the items that should prompt rights holders to revisit existing recordations and importers to tighten sourcing controls. If your recordation was filed more than a year ago, several of these changes affect you directly. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• CBP’s FY 2025 IPR seizures reached roughly 78 million items with an MSRP near $7.4 billion, up sharply from the FY 2024 figures. 
• The e-Recordation portal now validates against USPTO data. Supplemental Register marks, dead registrations, and classes not on the principal registration are rejected. 
• Renewals are $80 per class and ownership changes are $80. Up to three contact emails are now accepted; one should be a monitored general inbox. 
• CBP is piloting a Master Price List collection (national MSRP for every covered product), which will be an upload option on new applications and renewals. 
• The Counterfeit Notification Act, which would let CBP share shipping labels, invoices, and e-commerce platform information with rights holders and their representatives , has passed both the House and Senate but must still clear final congressional action before being sent to the President for signature. 
• CBP describes the current penalty posture as collection-focused, with DOJ engaged. Importers and anyone who “directs, assists financially or otherwise, or aids and abets” an importation face 19 U.S.C. 1526(f) exposure. 

Border Enforcement Starts with Recordation 

Recordation with CBP remains the foundation of border enforcement. USPTO and Copyright Office registration establish ownership, but CBP directs its enforcement resources toward recorded marks and works.  Only recorded rights receive the protections built into 19 CFR Part 133: enforcement against not just counterfeit trademarks, but also merely infringing or “confusingly similar” marks, pre-seizure exchange of information and images, post-seizure disclosure of the importer, exporter, and manufacturer information for counterfeit seizures, and penalties against the responsible parties for certain violations. The challenge for rights holders is that the program has changed materially since most recordations were filed, and a recordation that is stale, misclassified, or reaches an unmonitored inbox, results in missed enforcement opportunities. 

The scale of the problem continues to grow. Our September 2025 post cited FY 2024 figures of 32 million items seized with an MSRP of $5.4 billion. CBP’s FY 2025 figures are roughly 78.4 million items and $7.4 billion in MSRP, plus more than 88,000 alternative enforcement actions such as abandonment and destruction. Express consignment now accounts for the largest share of seized value, ahead of ocean cargo, which reflects the volume of small parcels moving through e-commerce channels. China and Hong Kong remain the dominant source countries by both quantity and value, with India a distant third. CBP reported approximately 19,000 active recordations enforced in FY 2024, and IPR complaints represented about 21 percent of all e-Allegations that year. 

What Changed and What to Do About It 

Changes to the e-Recordation Application 

The portal at iprr.cbp.gov has been rebuilt with front-end validation against USPTO data. Rights holders should expect the following: 

• Only marks on the Principal Register are eligible. Supplemental Register marks are rejected at submission. Registrations with a USPTO status of canceled, abandoned, or dead cannot be submitted, and the system will not accept a serial number in place of a registration number. 
• The international classes recorded must mirror the classes on the principal registration. A class that does not appear on the registration cannot be recorded. 
• Fees are $190 per international class for a new recordation, $80 per class for a renewal, and $80 for a change of ownership. Our prior post addressed only the $190 filing fee. 
• The application accepts up to three point-of-contact email addresses. CBP recommends, and we agree, that one be a monitored general inbox. CBP expects a response or at least an acknowledgment of receipt of the email within one business day of an authentication request. An unmonitored contact is the most common reason a detention becomes a missed enforcement opportunity. 
• New upload categories include a Product Identification/Authentication Guide, which must follow CBP’s published template, a cap on the number of “Other” uploads, and the option to upload a Master Price List to assist CBP with appraisals. 
• Changes to an existing recordation (point of contact, licensees, countries of manufacture) are still made by letter on company letterhead emailed to [email protected] listing every affected recordation number. 

Pilot Program: Master Price List 

CBP is piloting a program where rights holders may provide a national MSRP for every product covered by the recordation, to be added to relevant recordations. The rationale is internal. IP seizures require a MSRP appraisal, and instead of CBP conducting research and communicating with the rights holder for this value, CBP can use the Master Price List to gather this information and calculate the MSRP expediently. CBP has already contacted trusted partners for MSRP data. Assemble a current and defensible price list now rather than at the renewal prompt and email it to [email protected]. 

Pre-Seizure Disclosure Under 19 CFR 133.21 and 133.42 

CBP reviewed the disclosure timeline for trademarks (133.21) and copyrights (133.42), the latter revised by the final rule effective August 23, 2024 implementing the DMCA enforcement provisions of TFTEA. At any time after presentation, CBP may disclose basic shipment information and redacted photographs. After detention of suspected counterfeit or copyright infringing goods, CBP may disclose information appearing on the detained merchandise and its retail packaging, including unredacted images, serial numbers, lot codes, and UPCs, where that disclosure would assist CBP’s determination. CBP may release a sample pre- or post-seizure, subject to bond. Within 30 days after seizure, CBP will provide the date of importation, port, description, quantity, country of origin, and the names and addresses of the manufacturer, exporter, and importer. 

What CBP cannot currently share either before or after seizure is shipping documents such as air waybills, bills of lading, invoices, and outer shipping labels. That gap is what the pending legislation addresses. 

Counterfeit Notification Act: The Item to Watch 

CBP reported that the Counterfeit Notification Act, which amends 19 U.S.C. 1628a, passed the House in December 2025 and the Senate in August 2026 and is pending final Congressional approval. If the bill becomes law, it would authorize CBP to share detailed shipment information, including shipping labels, tracking numbers, sender and recipient addresses, invoices, manifests, outer packaging images, and container-level data, with rights holders and with e-commerce platforms, carriers, and other interested parties as the Commissioner deems appropriate. CBP indicated it expects to share this information with customs brokers as well. 

For rights holders this closes the most frequent gap in the current framework. For importers and brokers it means the information CBP holds about a suspect shipment will reach the rights holder faster and in far more detail. We will publish a separate update when the bill is signed and CBP issues implementing guidance. 

Tools Most Recordation Holders Do Not Use 

• Product identification guides should be brief, present side-by-side comparisons of genuine and suspect goods, avoid legal conclusions such as “counterfeit” or “infringing,” and never include a list of suspected violators. Suspected violators belong in an e-Allegation. CBP personnel are bound by the Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. 1905, and the internal IPRiS database is restricted to credentialed personnel with a need to know. 
• Physical samples of genuine and non-genuine product, clearly labeled, may be mailed to the IPE Branch at 90 K Street NE, 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20229. 
• Under the Donations Acceptance Program, rights holders may donate authentication technology for CBP’s use. CBP reported 633 authentication tools deployed at 89 ports of entry and 15 formal IPR partnerships. Inquiries go to [email protected]. 
• In-person and virtual training for CBP field personnel is available on request through [email protected]. Training must follow CBP’s Best Practices document and may not contain legal advice or direct CBP to take a particular action. CBP stated that rights holders who ignore this may be barred from future training. 

Enforcement Posture: Collection, Not Assessment 

Two points from the discussion matter to importers. First, CBP now lists Protect Revenue as a standalone mission priority, separate from Facilitate Lawful Trade. Second, CBP described the agency as being aggressive on IPR penalties and said the emphasis has moved from assessing penalties to actually collecting them, with partner government agencies such as the Department of Justice engaged in this mission. Penalties under 19 U.S.C. 1526(f) may be assessed against any person who directs, assists financially or otherwise, or aids and abets the importation of counterfeit goods, and those persons may be named individually or jointly and severally. Homeland Security Investigations is also expanding its trade fraud work. 

An importer that receives a notice of seizure has 30 days to petition for relief and must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the merchandise is not violative. A denied petition may be followed by a supplemental petition. Administrative and judicial forfeiture remedies cannot be pursued at the same time. CBP also acknowledged that 19 CFR Part 133 still describes a paper process while the program is now entirely electronic; a regulatory update is expected but no timeline was given. 

Action Items for IP Stakeholders 

For rights holders: 

• Confirm the recordation is current in the public IPRS database at iprs.cbp.gov, with a live point of contact and up to three emails, one of them a monitored general inbox. 
• Verify that recorded classes match the principal registration and that no recorded registration has lapsed at the USPTO. 
• Prepare a national MSRP list and send to [email protected] if you would like to participate in the pilot. 
• Submit or update a product identification guide using CBP’s template, and consider requesting port training for high-risk ports of entry. 
• Respond to every CBP authentication request within one business day with specific, image-based reasons rather than conclusions, or indicate receipt of the message and that an answer is forthcoming. 

For importers and brokers: 

• Audit supplier authorization for any branded goods, since the parties CBP can reach under 1526(f) include those who finance or facilitate the importation, not only the importer of record. 
• Calendar the 30-day petition deadline on every seizure notice and preserve authorization evidence before the shipment is presented. 
• Watch for the Counterfeit Notification Act to be signed and for CBP’s implementing guidance, which will change what rights holders learn about your shipments and how quickly. 

How Diaz Trade Law Can Help 

Diaz Trade Law assists rights holders with recordation, renewals, product identification guides, CBP training, and e-Allegations, and represents importers and brokers responding to detentions, seizures, petitions for relief, and IPR penalty actions. For more on the program, see our prior Bloomberg Law article on CBP’s Recordation Program. Contact us at [email protected] or 305-456-3830.