Oddbean new post about login | logout "[I]f Expeditee had told the truth, the Court might have questioned why a Vietnamese company needed an American court to freeze the assets of Vietnamese Defendants." Why, indeed? https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/175/045/477/201/original/c57c602596492748.jpg
I'll note that it's my sense that most #ScheduleA plaintiffs in the NDIL actually aren't from (and don't purport to be) from Chicago. And putting the technical venue questions aside, I do think it's worth having this conversation: Why should the federal court in Chicago be the IP arbiter for the world?
The pain continues: "No reasonable pre-suit investigation could have led Jones to believe that Respect the Look was a foreign company" https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/199/540/641/678/original/8f6690d45c144c5b.jpg https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/201/388/265/256/original/3b3cb41397e07466.jpg
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!! "If a plaintiff seeks extraordinary relief with respect to many defendants, it should expect to put in a corresponding amount of effort." https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/207/168/930/021/original/820248cfcdf5be47.jpg
To recap, the plaintiff sought a TRO based on claims of trademark infringement. Those claims were (at least against some of the defendants), totally frivolous: https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/228/409/450/198/original/3f2d0d4d3679dbc8.jpg
"Jones cannot avoid sanctions through ignorance of this aspect of trademark law; lawyers must research the law before advancing a legal theory in court." Yes! Also: This should be a warning to all the lawyers filing design patent cases based on assumptions about what the law is.
Tl;dr: The cost of complying with Rule 11 is not an excuse to fail to comply with Rule 11 https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/241/259/741/018/original/fb758bb31ec7cec0.jpg
Fraud on the court: https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/251/184/559/936/original/ade1dfaac0e02afc.jpg
This judge gets it: https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/258/887/501/987/original/bd748f594f77f699.jpg
"The Court will not give it another opportunity to do what it should have done from the outset: bring factually and legally sound claims." https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/024/265/909/736/750/original/6c147b704b654c7c.jpg
I am delighted to see that this decision ended up on Westlaw, 2023 WL 5748350, and Lexis, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157275. This case needs to be found, read, and cited broadly.
@e7f76f0d you are an amazing teacher. thank you for bringing attention to case. ever since Mattel tried to shake down my ex-husband and me for a parody site we created back in the 1990s, i’ve tried to keep up with the shenanigans involving IP laws
@8388665a Thank you for saying that! And I'd love to hear more about your parody site if you're ever interested in sharing
@e7f76f0d /1/ The sanctions decision is good as far as it goes, but have you looked at DN 77? extended the TRO as to the other Defendants so Expeditee could provide additional evidence about which Defendants used the FLAGWIX mark. [Dkt. 55.] On February 15, 2022, the Court later entered a preliminary injunction as to those Defendants. [Dkt. 77.]
@91432d0a No, hadn't seen that. Will check it out.
@e7f76f0d Hmm. I'm glad the judge is holding them to the actual law, but given the flag in question, is it reasonable to wish a pox on both their houses?
@e5a71c01 I mean, that's up to you. But copying isn't per se illegal (or even morally wrong, IMO). And who knows what IP rights, if any, the plaintiff might actually have here. The complaint is pretty light on details about the purported "copyright" and, notably, doesn't mention any copyright registration.
@e7f76f0d Lol, reminds me of the time in a patent case that a magistrate told me that my client should have spent a year and $500k to reverse engineer the accused graphics chip, rather than pursue an infringement case based on inferences from our technical expert. Point is that any competent IP counsel knows about the duty to perform an adequate pre-filing investigation before filing a federal lawsuit.
