Equipment Marketing, Labeling, and Pre-Authorization Operation 

Consumer and workplace devices are becoming smarter, both by incorporating more digital or computerized aspects and by becoming more interconnected to each other and to the internet.  These changes not only make devices more useful but also make them more likely to be subject to FCC regulations governing their importation, use, marketing, labeling, and authorization.      

We work with clients, including established manufacturers of communications and Internet-connected consumer devices, as well as start-up entrepreneurs and those that outsource their manufacturing overseas, to help them navigate the FCC’s rules dealing with the testing, approval, marketing, labeling, and importing of devices, to ensure clients can meet their business objectives while complying with the law.  Often a new technology or product does not squarely fit within the FCC’s existing technical rules, and our attorneys work with clients to obtain waivers or revisions of FCC rules to allow the new product to be authorized and marketed.  Our attorneys also counsel clients on issues of security, accessibility, and the use of foreign manufactured components.  We assist clients that are the subject of FCC enforcement investigations and help them come into compliance, and we support other clients in determining how they can stop competitors or other bad actors from flouting the FCC’s rules governing equipment authorization and/or causing interference. 

Not only do WBK’s attorneys have decades of experience in these areas, but our senior engineering advisor formerly headed the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology’s Policy and Rules Division that promulgates the relevant rules.