Business Notes TOYS

Ask any eight-year-old boy if he wants to play with dolls, and he may paste you one. Better not tell him that a court has ruled that his GI Joe is a doll. Hasbro, which introduced GI Joe in 1964, has always used macho euphemisms like "action figure" to describe the soldier. Since 1982, though, when Hasbro began importing its GI Joe toys from Hong Kong, the U.S. Customs Service has classified it as a doll.

Under Customs rules, imported dolls are subject to a 12% import tariff, while toy soldiers are not. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has now upheld Customs, reasoning that, like other dolls, GI Joe is "a representation of a human being used as a child's plaything." But for little boys everywhere, said Donald Robbins, the firm's general counsel, "GI Joe is still one of the guys."