Schedule A litigation has become a prominent tool for intellectual property owners to effectively enforce their rights against entities misappropriating their trademarks, copyrights, and/or patented inventions through the sale of infringing products on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.
The term refers to the often voluminous list of defendants attached to the complaint in these types of cases, which is typically labeled as “Schedule A.” In tandem with filing the complaint, Schedule A plaintiffs often move to file the list of defendants under seal before filing a motion for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) to freeze the e-commerce accounts of the accused parties. If the list of defendants is filed under seal and the TRO is granted, any assets associated with the accused e-commerce accounts are effectively held in abeyance before the defendants know they have been sued—forcing them to eventually settle, litigate, or risk forfeiting their assets by way of a default judgment.
While an advantageous litigation model for IP owners, Schedule A litigation has received scrutiny on multiple fronts with courts and academics alike questioning its propriety. Despite these long-standing concerns, the Northern District of Illinois emerged early on as one of the most popular venues for filing Schedule A lawsuits. However, a recent decision from the Seventh Circuit—which exercises appellate jurisdiction over the Northern District of Illinois—adds to a growing body of case law limiting the uses cases of Schedule A litigation and casting doubt on its future as an enforcement mechanism.
On May 29, 2026, the Seventh Circuit held in Kangol LLC v. Hangzhou Chuanyue Silk Import & Export Co., Ltd. that service of process (i.e., the complaint and other court documents) by email to a Chinese defendant is insufficient to give a court personal jurisdiction (i.e., the power to issue a binding decision) over that defendant.
There, Kangol LLC (“Kangol”)—a clothing company known for hats depicting its kangaroo logo—filed a Schedule A lawsuit against 25 defendants for trademark infringement, counterfeiting, unfair competition, false designation of origin, and trademark dilution in violation of the Lanham Act. Per the complaint filed in the action, all of the defendants were e-commerce vendors and most were based in China.
In accordance with common Schedule A practice, Kangol obtained a TRO and permission from the lower court to effect service by email. Ten months after being served and no more than two months after having a default judgment enforced against its Amazon account, Chinese defendant Hangzhou Chuanyue Silk Import & Export Co., Ltd. appeared and filed a motion to vacate the judgment against it on several grounds, the most relevant of which being that the judgment was void for lack of personal jurisdiction given that service by email in China is prohibited by the Hague Service Convention—to which the United States and China are both parties—and that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f)(3) does not permit service on a foreign entity by means “prohibited by international agreement.”
Citing Supreme Court precedent and established canons of interpretation, the Seventh Circuit held that the Hague Service Convention laid out an exhaustive list of permitted forms of service. While the court acknowledged that Article 10(a) of the convention permitted service by postal channels directly to persons abroad—which could conceivably encompass service by email—it noted that Article 10(a) does not apply if the destination state objects to such service. Given that China has objected to service under Article 10(a), the court held that service by email was not permitted against a Chinese defendant under the Hague Service Convention and, since the convention is exhaustive in enumerating permitted forms of service, it effectively prohibits service by email on a Chinese defendant.
Given the prevalence of Chinese defendants in Schedule A cases, the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Kangol presents a significant obstacle to future Schedule A plaintiffs in that they will need to rely on forms of service apart from service by email to apprise often hard-to-find defendants of the action filed against them.
However, the Kangol decision is not without its limitations. First, as noted above, it only clarifies that serving a foreign defendant by email is prohibited in destination states that have previously objected to Article 10(a) of the Hague Service Convention. Second, the Hague Service Convention may not apply in every case. Indeed, as noted by the Kangol court, the convention does not apply where the address of the person to be served is not known (reflecting that the convention is meant to provide means for properly effecting service abroad rather than solving the problem of locating a missing defendant).
Despite the above qualifications, this case comes on the heels of several others from the Seventh Circuit tightening the reins on Schedule A practice. On March 31, 2026, the Seventh Circuit issued a decision in another Schedule A case, Yinnv Liu v. Monthly, et al., where it declined to find that the lower court had personal jurisdiction over foreign defendants when it had not been proven that any actual sales took place in Illinois (where the case was filed) and that all the evidence showed was that the defendants operated e-commerce storefronts which were accessible in the United States via the Internet. While the lower court found that it had personal jurisdiction based on evidence consisting of screenshots from Walmart’s website showing the checkout page with the infringing product and a Chicago shipping address, the Seventh Circuit took issue with the fact that this evidence failed to show a completed purchase. With hundreds of potential defendants in a Schedule A case, this requirement raises the practical question of how a Schedule A plaintiff (or its law firm) would handle purchasing a plethora of infringing products to establish actual sales.
Even earlier than Yinnv, on August 8, 2025, in Eicher Motors Ltd. v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A, the Northern District of Illinois denied the plaintiff’s motion for a TRO for failure to meet the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b), which only permits the issuance of a TRO without notice to the other party (typical in Schedule A cases) when “specific facts in an affidavit or a verified complaint clearly show that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to the movant before the adverse party can be heard in opposition.” Finding that this standard was not met, the Eicher Motors court further opined that “Schedule A cases rarely, if ever, meet [the] requirement[s]” of Rule 65(b).
Accordingly, while Schedule A litigation endures as a vehicle for enforcing intellectual property rights against infringers in the e-commerce marketplace, Kangol and other recent decisions emanating from the Seventh Circuit cast doubt on the long-term viability of the practice or, at least, the future scope of its use cases.
