A SAD Scheme Plaintiff Unsuccessfully Plays an IP Privilege Card–Price v. Schedule A Defendants
All SAD Scheme cases are, by definition, sad. This case achieves even greater depths: it’s Flori-dumb level SAD. * * * The plaintiff, Price, has a trademark registration in the phrase “White Privilege Card,” for novelty plastic identification cards. Ugh….
New Article Alert: “SAD Scheme Standing Orders”
I have posted a new essay entitled “SAD Scheme Standing Orders,” forthcoming later this year in the Chicago-Kent Law Review. This essay discusses judicial standing orders regarding the SAD Scheme, which only started emerging about a year ago. Like all…
How Does the Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine Improve Trademark Analyses?–Dassault v. Childress
These parties have been fighting with each other since at least 2009. This case had a trial in 2017 and ruled for the defense. In 2020, the Sixth Circuit remanded the case for a new trial, which occurred in March…
Greer Burns Law Firm Sanctioned for “Willfully Abusive” and “Egregious” SAD Scheme Judge-Shopping
Currently, the Northern District of Illinois judges do not apply consistent standards for SAD Scheme joinder. Some judges still permit the joinder of dozens or hundreds of seemingly unrelated defendants in a single case; other judges essentially make SAD Scheme…
A Massive Roundup of Section 230 Decisions
This post also owes its origins to my 2-week trip to China in June. Section 230 decisions started backing up while I was on the trip and never stopped accruing. In total, this post covers about 30 decisions in 7k+…
Schedule A: Ten Notable Developments in 2025 (Guest Blog Post)
By Sarah Fackrell, Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law It’s been a busy year on the Schedule A beat. In reflecting on the year, I’ve put together this quick round-up of ten of the top developments, in (rough)…
Post-Mortem of a Misguided Logo Trademark Lawsuit–LegalForce v. Internet Brands
The plaintiff in this case is LegalForce, Raj Abhyanker CEO, which run the notorious trademark registration operation Trademarkia. How notorious? Trademarkia’s own web site has a page entitled “Is Trademarkia a Scam? Debunking Hearsay,” which brings to mind the old…
Second Circuit Rejects Email Service on Chinese Defendants in Baby Shark SAD Scheme Case
This case involves the “Baby Shark” earworm song, which has billions of YouTube views and ranks as the #1 most viewed YouTube video of all time. You already know the lyrics (and associated hand/arm movements) by heart, but the high-quality…
11th Circuit Sidesteps the SAD Scheme’s Problems–Ain Jeem v. Schedule A
The plaintiff enforces Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s IP rights. It is indeed “sad” to see a living legend like Kareem degrade his legacy by participating in a bottom-feeding operation like the SAD Scheme. The plaintiff filed a SAD Scheme case in 2021…
Another Shill Article Tries to Normalize the SAD Scheme
I note the posting of a draft article, which (unfortunately) has been accepted for publication by the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal, entitled “Beyond the Brick-and-Mortar Paradigm: The Legal and Procedural Foundations of Schedule A Litigation in…