MichaelI found a #ScheduleA -like case where something seems off. The case is ningbo v. ondway, 2:24-cv-568 (W.D. Penn.). The first clue I had was that the attorney entered the parties very weirdly when opening the case in CM/ECF. There's a Schedule A attached to the complaint, but defendants are named in the caption with an "et al." and there are no other defendants listed in Schedule A besides those in the caption. 1/5
The headers on the table in Schedule A are in Chinese. The attorney lists her affiliation with "Raychan I.P. Law Firm" for which I can find no web presence and a Yahoo! email address. The physical address on the complaint is in Freeport, PA but CM/ECF lists an address in Redondo Beach, CA. PA and NY bars have an address in Jensen Beach, FL for this person. 2/5
The complaint doesn't contain any allegations specific to the defendant to even identify them, which I suppose is par for the course in #ScheduleA cases. Paragraph 19 also seems odd to me, where it says that "Defendants sell the products under the ordinary observer test." What? The ordinary observer test matters, but what does it mean to "sell the products under" it? 3/5
That phraseology ("sell products under the ordinary observer test") also appears in another complaint, filed in 2022 by the same attorney, then of D&R I.P. Law Firm, APLC of Monterey Park, California, in the same court, Liu v. Foujoy, No. 2:22-cv-367. There, the plaintiff did get a TRO and preliminary injunction, but then counsel withdrew and the plaintiff failed to prosecute the case. 4/5
Plaintiff may well have a colorable claim here. The accused products have more than a passing similarity to the claimed pool brush. But no TRO/PI was filed (yet), which is unusual for a #ScheduleA case, since that's the real relief that they're after. And, despite it being a design patent case, there's no request for infringers' profits under § 289. This may all be due to nothing more than less-than-perfect attorney work, but it's still weird. 5/5
Sarah Fackrell@sqfreak Interesting. Thanks for the heads-up! On your last point, you might be surprised how many plaintiffs omit § 289 demands in DP cases. I've heard it suggested that this might be on purpose (e.g., for insurance coverage reasons) but I suspect that, in a nonzero number of cases, it's because the attorneys don't know about § 289.