This often includes varying service levels, pricing and product features to improve the so-called "fit" to the local marketplace.
An Australian Productivity Commission report recommended in July 2009 that legislation be extended to legalise the parallel importing of books, with three years' notice for publishers.
[9] The Federal Court of Australia decision has ruled that parallel imported items with valid trademarks are subject to Section 123 of the Trade Mark Act.
In Germany, the Bundesgerichtshof has held that the doctrine of international exhaustion governs parallel importation, subject to the EU rules above.
[11] Japan's intellectual property rights law prohibits audiovisual articles marketed for export from being sold domestically, and such sale of "re-imported" CDs are illegal.
[12] In the case of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., the US Supreme Court held that the first-sale doctrine applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad, thus permitting importation and resale of many product categories.
Moreover, the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies, Appropriations Act of 2006 prohibits future free trade agreements from categorically disallowing the parallel import of patented products.
[13] The United States has unique automobile design legislation administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In the past, this created demand for grey import vehicles, where certain models are modified for individual customers to meet these requirements at a higher cost than if it had been done by the original manufacturer.
This procedure interferes with the marketing scheme of the manufacturer, who might plan to import a less powerful car and force consumers to accept it.
The Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act of 1988 basically ended the gray market by requiring manufacturer certification of U.S.-bound cars.
Grocery shops opened to serve brand-name hotels often feature parallel-imported foodstuffs and toiletry to cater to travellers so that they can easily recognise the product they have been using at home.
Electronic goods like Apple's iPad are frequently imported in Hong Kong before they're official and resold to South-East Asian early adopters for a premium.
[19] In September, the trade minister, Denis Manturov, stated that Russian consumers would be able to buy the newly announced iPhone 14, despite Apple halting all sales in the country.