Court Upholds Google’s Ad TOS Amendment to Add an Arbitration Clause–In re Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation
This is a long-running litigation battle over Google’s advertising practices. In 2021, many individual advertiser claims were consolidated into an MDL in SDNY. Four years and 900+ docket entries later, the SNDY court holds that two plaintiffs’ claims must go…
Will Judges Become More Skeptical of Joinder in SAD Scheme Cases?–Dongguan Juyuan v. Schedule A
[Like many of you, I am still trying to make sense of the election results. I’ll restart my normal blogging, but I’m having trouble focusing.] This is a design patent SAD Scheme case before Judge Jeremy C. Daniel in the…
Expert Witness Used Generative AI to Prepare His Report. It Didn’t Go Well–In re Weber
This case involves real property on Cat Island in the Bahamas. After the death of Michael S. Weber, the property passed into his trust. Susan, his sister, is the trustee, and his son Owen is a trust beneficiary. Owen may…
Deleting an Instagram Post Was Evidence-Tampering–Webb v. U.S.
This is an assault case. Soon after the assault, the defendant made a public Instagram post showing a bloody fist and the caption “Got slim blood all on me … #NoSuckaShit.” A law enforcement officer saw the post and screenshotted…
A Judge Enumerates a SAD Scheme Plaintiff’s Multiple Abuses, But Still Won’t Award Sanctions–Jiangsu Huari Webbing Leather v. Schedule A Defendants
This is a SAD Scheme case. The plaintiff, Jiangsu Huari Webbing Leather, owns U.S. Patent No. 11,478,673 for an outdoor exercise product (“a rectangular-shaped buckle-and-belt mechanism, embodied in a Hanging Exercise Product that is sold online”). The plaintiff sued 163…
SAD Scheme Cases Are Always Troubling–Betty’s Best v. Schedule A Defendants 😠
Every SAD Scheme lawsuit is problematic, though the specific reasons may differ. Each lawsuit creates dozens or hundreds of individual dramas, few of which receive any public scrutiny, and usually comes at the cost of due process and the rule…
Judge Pushes Back on SAD Scheme Sealing Requests
A signature feature of SAD Scheme cases is that rightsowners typically try to seal defendants’ identities. The sealing helps rightsowners in several ways, including preserving their ability to proceed without defendant involvement, springing account and cash freezes on defendants to…
Roblox Sanctioned for SAD Scheme Abuse–Roblox v. Schedule A Defendants
TIL: Roblox regularly uses the SAD Scheme. I found at least 19 cases. In the lawsuit I’m covering today, Roblox named over 250 defendants. If that’s true with the other 18 cases, Roblox may have sued 4,000+ defendants using the…
Q&A About Emoji Law
I did another interview on emoji law that I thought was worth sharing here. * * * 1. Please tell me about your childhood and young adulthood. Did you play games (ie, Atari, Nintendo) that required you to “read” icons…
Schedule A (SAD Scheme) Plaintiff Sanctioned for “Fraud on the Court”–Xped v. Respect the Look
This is one of the thousands of “Schedule A” cases, a phenomenon I’ve labeled the “SAD Scheme.” (Technically, the defendants in this case are enumerated on “Exhibit 1” instead of “Schedule A,” but same thing). The court describes the phenomenon:…