U.S. International Trade Commission, Office of the General Counsel

U.S. International Trade Commission, Office of the General Counsel

The Office of the General Counsel (OGC) is the chief legal advisor to the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), an independent, quasi-judicial federal agency headquartered in Washington, D.C. The OGC provides legal counsel to the six Commissioners and agency staff across all USITC activities. In intellectual property matters, the OGC's primary role is to advise the Commission during its investigations into allegations of unfair importation under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and to represent the Commission in all litigation, including appeals of its final determinations to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The OGC's IP practice is unique and tied directly to the USITC's statutory mandate. The office does not specialize in a particular technology area like a private firm; rather, its attorneys handle patent, trademark, and copyright disputes across a wide spectrum of technologies brought before the Commission, including consumer electronics, semiconductors, and mechanical devices. The ITC is a distinct and popular forum for patent litigation, known for its fast-paced proceedings and powerful remedy of exclusion orders, which can bar infringing products from entering the U.S. market. The OGC's role is not to represent the private parties (complainants or respondents) in these investigations but to serve as counsel to the Commission itself.

As a neutral government entity, the Office of the General Counsel has no side preference between plaintiffs and defendants. The OGC's role as "defendant" in appellate litigation, as seen in the tracked case Bissell Inc. v. International Trade Commission, arises when a party to an investigation appeals the Commission's final decision. In this capacity, the OGC defends the legality and reasoning of the Commission's findings. In the Bissell matter, which concerned patents on wet-dry surface cleaning devices, the OGC successfully defended the Commission’s determination that redesigned vacuum products did not infringe Bissell's patents. The Federal Circuit affirmed the ITC's decision in a precedential opinion on May 11, 2026.

The attorneys listed in connection with the OGC are government lawyers. Dominic L. Bianchi is the former General Counsel of the USITC, having been appointed in 2013 and serving for over a decade before joining the law firm Polsinelli in 2025. Wayne W. Herrington and Sidney A. Rosenzweig have been identified as attorneys within the Office of the General Counsel, representing the agency in various Section 337 investigation matters.