Laws and Regulations

Of all the costs that go into making a promotional product, quality costs are often the hardest to appreciate.

The deadline to comply with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 is less than three months away. The bill, which requires retail and manufacturing companies that do business in California to publicly disclose their efforts to eliminate slavery and human trafficking, has a compliance deadline of January 1, 2012.

It seems like every week I read an article lamenting the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and the efforts underway in Congress to roll back some of the provisions of this law.

The ninth edition of the Restricted Substances List (RSL) from the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) has been updated to reflect changes spurred by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) as well as new state and international regulations.

The list, which encompasses apparel, footwear, and home textiles, was first released in 2007 and covers chemicals and other substances whose presence in a product is restricted through a government regulation or law.

The list identifies the most restrictive iteration of that regulation worldwide—and is reviewed and updated every six months. It is also available in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Spanish.

President Obama signed the bipartisan Leahy-Smith America Invents Act on Sept. 16, enabling the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to set its own fees, hire more patent examiners and decrease the time it takes for a patent to be issued after filing.

Raise your hand if you like negative campaign ads. No hands? I'm not surprised.

I know, I know. Boring technical jargon. It's all true. But unless you have someone else in your company to take care of this for you, you can't afford not to know how to read a test report.

Rick Brenner, CEO of Prime Line, explains how ignorance of CPSIA laws can damage a promotional products company, and offers suggestions for solutions for the industry.

Think you know a toy when you see one? We should soon find out if the Consumer Product Safety Commission agrees with you.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) held day one of the First North American Consumer Product Safety Summit today at its headquarters in Bethesda, Md.