UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
IN RE: :
“SCHEDULE A” CASES : STANDING ORDER 2025-04
WHEREAS, this Court is well aware that a proliferation of online counterfeit sales is
creating actual and substantial risks for companies possessing valuable, retail-based trademarks,
copyrights, and patents; and
WHEREAS, many companies are seeking injunctive relief against this theft of their
intellectual property rights by filing what has become known as “Schedule A” cases; and
WHEREAS, this Court has observed an uptick in Schedule A cases filed in this District;
and
WHEREAS, this Court has observed that Schedule A litigants are gradually, and often
unusually, modifying the Court’s rules and procedures, creating extraordinary exceptions to same
rules and procedures; and
WHEREAS, the Court finds good cause to examine how it procedurally administers
Schedule A cases; and
WHEREAS, the Court further finds good cause to provide guidance to counsel and
litigants in these cases; accordingly
IT IS ORDERED, effective immediately, that the following procedural guidelines shall
apply to all Schedule A cases:
1. To satisfy Rule 20, each complaint shall consist of a single defendant or group of
defendants acting under the same operator, and a separate filing fee shall be paid for
each separate complaint. This comports with the typical IP case, where an IP holder
sues a particular infringer for its specific conduct. If the marks, copyrights, or patents
at issue are disparate and unrelated, then the complaints must be divided to include only
related IP. One of the important reasons for this severance is that the Court anticipates
that personal jurisdiction will be a defendant-specific inquiry, which examines the
particular defendant’s sales of the allegedly infringing product into the forum state. So
joinder may be impractical, at least before personal jurisdiction is established, where
“the claims against the defendants involve different facts” relating to personal
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jurisdiction. 1 UN4 Prods., Inc. v. Does 1-15, No. 17-2768, 2017 WL 5885779, at *2
(E.D. Pa. Nov. 29, 2017); see also Blood v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 351 F. App’x 604,
607 (3d Cir. 2009) (joinder impractical where it would “necessarily require a separate
factual inquiry” into each plaintiff’s claims). If necessary, for the sake of efficiency, the
Court will be open to consolidating related cases once it is satisfied that personal
jurisdiction exists and the other consolidation factors are met (e.g., that there is a logical
relationship among the parties and the claims); and
2. To satisfy Rule 11, the complaint must plausibly plead allegations of personal
jurisdiction, including contacts with the forum if specific jurisdiction is invoked. 2 The
law is well-settled that simply being an online seller on Amazon isn’t enough. And the
law is also well-settled that that plaintiff cannot create personal jurisdiction by ordering
a product to be shipped to the forum. So before the filing of the complaint, the plaintiff
must have developed some evidence of each defendant’s contacts with the forums,
including, if necessary, sales information or distribution locations 3; and
1 This concern is amplified by a member of this Court’s observation that personal jurisdiction may
turn out to be a major issue throughout the litigation of Schedule A cases involving foreign
defendants, even if defendants do not appear to contest personal jurisdiction. If a “[p]laintiff were
to move for default judgment, the Court would hold an evidentiary hearing or otherwise require
[the plaintiff] to develop an appropriate evidentiary record from which the Court could be assured
of the validity of its judgment, which includes confirmation of personal jurisdiction.” Xie v.
GUANHE Home essentials, No. 25-265, 2025 WL 1039233, at *3 n.6 (W.D. Pa. Apr. 8, 2025)
(Hornak, C.J.).
2This includes any allegations of personal jurisdiction under the federal long-arm statute, Rule
4(k)(2).
3 In some cases, plaintiffs have complained that this information is not readily available, and that
they need some jurisdictional discovery. But that doesn’t excuse Rule 11’s threshold requirement
that “the factual contentions have evidentiary support of, if specifically so identified, will likely
have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery.”
That said, if a plaintiff meets Rule 11’s threshold requirement, the Court will certainly consider
allowing jurisdictional discovery, on a case-by-case basis. See Rockwell Automation, Inc. v. EU
Automation, Inc., No. 21-1162, 2022 WL 1978726, at *12 (D. Del. June 6, 2022) (“Although the
plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating facts that support personal jurisdiction, courts are to
assist the plaintiff by allowing jurisdictional discovery unless the plaintiff’s claim is clearly
frivolous. However, a court should not permit discovery as a matter of course; before allowing
jurisdictional discovery to proceed, the court must be satisfied that there is some indication that
the particular defendant is amenable to suit in this forum. If a plaintiff does not come forward with
some competent evidence that personal jurisdiction over the defendant might exist, a court should
not permit jurisdictional discovery to proceed. To receive jurisdictional discovery, plaintiffs must
claim that their factual allegations establish with reasonable particularity the possible existence of
requisite contacts.”
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3. The Court will not, as a matter of course, allow a plaintiff to dispense with ordinary
service requirements, including foreign service requirements under the Hague
Convention. There needs to be a particularized showing—which will likely be case
specific and defendant specific—before alternate service is authorized. D Squared
Plant Traps LLC v. Guangdong Bixing Trading Co., LTD., 716 F. Supp. 3d 352, 357-58
(W.D. Pa. 2024) (Conti, J.) (no showing that the case fell within an exception under the
Convention that would authorize an alternative form of service). Any motions for
alternate service should explain what efforts have been made to discover each
defendant’s domicile and to effectuate service by usual means (including what efforts
were undertaken to determine the address of each defendant and the validity of the
address) and whether the form of alternate service requested is permitted by the Hague
Convention given each defendant’s domicile (and the factual basis for this). See RJ
Brands, LLC v. Hangdong Trading Ltd., No. 21-04747, 2021 WL 3206813, at *3
(D.N.J. July 28, 2021) (rejecting conclusory assertion that compliance with the default
method under the Hague Convention is “too time consuming, costly, and potentially
fruitless”); Luxottica Grp. S.p.A. v. Partnerships & Unincorporated Associations
Identified on Schedule “A”, 391 F. Supp. 3d 816 (N.D. Ill. 2019). The Court would
also note that to save costs, plaintiffs can always email defendants the waiver-of-service
forms, which would obviate the need for Hague Convention service; and
4. The Court does not intend, as a matter of course, to grant ex parte TRO motions. See
Forcel Media Limited, 2025 WL 1665586. Because “[p]reliminary injunctive relief is
an extraordinary remedy and should be granted only in limited circumstances[,]” the
Court will not grant TRO and preliminary-injunction motions based on conclusory
statements. Kos Pharms., Inc. v. Andrx Corp., 369 F.3d 700 (3d Cir. 2004) (cleaned
up). The Court will not grant any TRO motions where there is not a sound basis that
personal jurisdiction exists as to the defendant. The Court is also unlikely to grant any
TRO motion to freeze online accounts absent some evidence that the defendant has
transferred or is transferring assets to avoid judgment in the specific case, and also after
a specific showing linking the amount of assets to the amount of disgorgement at issue.
See Wham-O Holding v. The Partnerships, No. 2412523, ECF 39 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 20,
2025) (declining to impose blanket asset freeze on assets beyond those derived from
the sale of allegedly infringing products). A prejudgment asset restraint—let alone one
requested without any notice to the defendant—is an “extraordinary measure” not “to
be employed simply to secure a pot of money for later recovery of damages.” Jergenson
v. Inhale Int’l Ltd., No. 22-2040, 2023 WL 167413, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 12, 2023); and
5. Because the ex parte TRO motion is usually the justification for granting a motion to
seal, the Court is unlikely to seal any filings. If a motion to seal is filed, it must be
supported by the grounds set forth in In re Avandia Mktg., Sales Pracs. & Prods. Liab.
Litig., 924 F.3d 662, 673 (3d Cir. 2019); and
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6. A filing of the complaint must be accompanied by a declaration from plaintiff’s counsel
that identifies any pending cases brought by the plaintiff(s) against any of the named
defendants prior to this suit. The declaration must identify the case number(s), note
whether the intellectual property at issue was the same as in this case, and describe the
status and/or disposition of the other case(s) (e.g., pending, settlement, dismissal, or
other disposition); and it is further
ORDERED that failure to comply with any provision of this Standing Order shall
constitute good cause for dismissal without prejudice of the Schedule A case.
Date: September 25, 2025
Hon. Renée Marie Bumb
Chief United States District Judge
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