Pitney-Bowes, Inc. v. United States

59 Cust. Ct. 181, 273 F. Supp. 403, 1967 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2218
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedSeptember 14, 1967
DocketC.D. 3116
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 59 Cust. Ct. 181 (Pitney-Bowes, Inc. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Customs Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pitney-Bowes, Inc. v. United States, 59 Cust. Ct. 181, 273 F. Supp. 403, 1967 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2218 (cusc 1967).

Opinion

BeckwoRth, Judge:

The merchandise involved in this case consists of electrically operated rapid embossing machines for plates, model 790, sometimes referred to as model 90. They were imported from West Germany on November 3,1964, and were assessed with duty at 15 per centum ad valorem under item 674.35, Tariff Schedules of the United States, as metal-working machine tools. It is claimed that the machines are not machine tools but are properly dutiable at 10 per centum ad valorem under item 676.30, as office machines, not specially provided for, or free of duty under item 676.05, as nonautomatic typewriters with hand-operated keyboard.

[183]*183The pertinent provisions of the tariff schedules are as follows: Schedule 6, part 4, TSUS:

[184]*184Plaintiff called four witnesses at the trial:

(1) Arniand A. Benoit, assistant to the executive vice president for Pitney-Bowes, Inc., the plaintiff herein, who has been employed by Pitney-Bowes for about 5 years doing liaison work with its overseas subsidiary; had previously been employed for 2 years as director of manufacturing liaison in the portable typewriter division of the Remington Rand Division of Sperry Rand, and had been employed for 24 years with the Underwood Corporation, now known as the Olivetti-Underwood Corporation, in various capacities, most recently as works manager of the Bridgeport plant;

(2) Alfred Jacobs who has been employed by Pitney-Bowes in various capacities since 1950 and is presently sales manager for ad-dresser-printers ;

(3) Alan Frederick Stocker who has been employed by Farrington Business Machines Corporation in the United States for 15 months and was previously employed by its English subsidiary, Adrema, Ltd., of London;

(4) Prescott A. Smith, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Benoit testified that the machine involved here was produced in the Berlin works of Adrema-Werke, a subsidiary of Pitney-Bowes. A photograph of it (plaintiff’s exhibit 1) depicts a fairly large console floor-mounted machine. Mr. Benoit described it as an electrically operated machine used for the purpose of embossing metal plates, one of which was received in evidence as exhibit 2. The machine is operated by inserting the metal plate, moving a pointer on a dial above the head of the machine to the jaarticular letter or character desired and activating the machine. The machine has upper and lower types which straddle the metal plate. The upper types have raised characters and the lower types matching depressed characters. When the characters are in position and the motor action tripped, the lower type comes up to the underside of the plate and supports it, and the upper type comes down and presses the metal between the two types, thus forming the letter or character on the plate. As Mr. Jacobs said, the machine in effect “types” a name and address or other information on a metal plate.

The external contours of the plate are not changed by the embossing, but there is a change in the surface of the plate where the characters appear. The amount of displacement of the metal is rather slight, and there is no removal of unwanted material in the process. Mr. Benoit was unable to say whether there was any thinning of the material thereby.

The principal use of an embossing machine is to make impressions on metal plates which have an end use in an office machines system. [185]*185It is operated by typists and clerical people normally employed in offices. Tbe embossed plate is kept in a plate file and is used in an addresser-printer or addressing machine to print out the name, address, or other information on the plate onto envelopes, invoices, bills, etc. Such embossing machines are sold as part of a system of office equipment. In the experience of Mr. Benoit, an embossing machine is never sold without a simultaneous sale of a machine to print from the plate that it makes, but not all customers who buy addressing machines also buy embossing machines. They may have plates embossed at an embossing center operated by Pitney-Bowes.

Mr. Jacobs testified that he has handled sales of embossing machines throughout the United States, has traveled himself, and has charge of about a thousand salesmen. He has sold these machines to schools, municipalities, real estate agents, wholesalers, hospitals, retailers, and insurance companies. They are used in an office or in the administrative part of a school or hospital where they have typewriters, adding machines, or calculators. He had never seen an embossing machine used in a warehouse or shipping department. They are invariably used with an addresser-printer.

Mr. Benoit compared the embosser to a typewriter, stating that both have certain parts which are very similar in shape and function, but that they also have differences. In his opinion, an embossing machine is not a typewriter. Mr. Jacobs testified that one does not have to be a typist to operate an embossing machine and that it is not sold as a typewriter.

It appears from the testimony of Mr. Stocker that, prior to the last war, Adrema, Ltd., of London had been a sales subsidiary of Adrema-Werke of Germany. Its production thereafter had at first been dependent on the designs, equipment, tooling, or other experience of Adrema-Werke of Germany, but it has since developed its own line of equipment. It produces and sells embossing machines which compete with the Pitney-Bowes model 790, perform the same function, and are sold to the same class of users.

The chief difference is that the Farrington machines can be arranged to emboss plastic as well as metal, by the use of different type heads. When used on metal, the machine embosses a plate similar to exhibit 2. When used on plastic, it produces raised characters on a plastic plate. It embosses air travel cards, credit cards, and identification badges. It is usually used with an addresser-printer as part of the system. One of the Farrington embossers has a keyboard similar to that of a typewriter for use in selecting the characters for embossing. The witness has instructed clerks in offices, not machinists, in the use of the embosser.

[186]*186Mr. Benoit said the definition of a machine tool in headnote 1, sub-part F, part 4, of schedule 6, supra, is acceptable as far as it goes, but that it does not completely cover his concept of a machine tool, which he derived from his factory experience. In his view, a machine tool is one which produces repetitively over and over again the same thing, but he recognized that machine tools can be used also to produce one of a kind. They produce parts for another machine or other machines. He thought that an electric can opener could be considered a machine tool under the definition in the headnote since it is a machine which cuts away metal, and that an electrically-operated paper stapler could be so considered because it bends or changes the form of metal.

Mr. Smith, prior to giving his opinion, testified that he graduated from M.I.T. in 1935 and entered the machine tool industry at the Pratt <⅞ Whitney Company in Hartford, Connecticut, where he worked in the factory for one year on machine tools, then went to the production engineering office, where he determined what machine tools should be used to produce parts. He was later employed by the United States Shoe Machinery Corp., as machine tool equipment engineer, and the Hemphill Company, as a production engineer and factory manager.

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Bluebook (online)
59 Cust. Ct. 181, 273 F. Supp. 403, 1967 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2218, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pitney-bowes-inc-v-united-states-cusc-1967.