IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—E.D. Wis.: Lawsuit over blank forms and labels will move forward for now, (Feb 19, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

But the company that sued over the forms, which are used to comply with federal transportation regulations, will not be entitled to a preliminary injunction.

A company that makes forms and labels that are used by vehicle owners to comply with federal transportation regulations will be entitled to move forward with its claims that a competitor purloined its work in violation of the Copyright Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the Lanham Act, the federal court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin has held. But the court, in finding that the company had adequately stated a claim as a matter of law, found that the company was not entitled to a preliminary injunction because it had not shown that it would suffer irreparable harm by the competitor’s continued marketing of its products while the lawsuit progressed (JJ Keller & Associates Inc v. Tradex Global Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01321-BBC (E.D. Wis. Feb. 12, 2026)).

The lawsuit is a dispute between two companies that market forms and labels that vehicle fleet operators use to comply with Department of Transportation regulations. J.J. Keller & Associates, a Wisconsin company, owns four registered copyrights for variants of these forms. J.J. Keller claimed that Tradex Global, Inc., a Texas company that does business as Buck USA, created and sold products through online retailers such as Amazon and Walmart that infringe on J.J. Keller’s copyrights and trade dress. J.J. Keller filed suit against Tradex for copyright infringement, manipulation of copyright management information in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, trade dress infringement in violation of the Lanham Act, and unfair competition under Wisconsin law. J.J. Keller also sought a preliminary injunction to restrain Tradex from continuing to market any of the allegedly infringing works.

Tradex moved to dismiss the complaint, leading to this opinion.

Personal jurisdiction. The court first found that it had jurisdiction over Tradex. The evidence showed, the court noted, that Tradex marketed goods through online stores available in Wisconsin. Thus, the court noted, Tradex thus “unequivocally asserted a willingness to ship goods to Wisconsin and established the capacity to do so.” Moreover, the court noted, whenever an order was placed by a Wisconsin resident, Tradex filled the order, thus “intentionally shipping an infringing product to the customer’s designated Wisconsin address.” Moreover, the court noted, although the record showed that there were only two known purchasers in Wisconsin, that was still consistent with personal jurisdiction. Indeed, the court noted, even if the only known Wisconsin purchasers acted with the pretext of establishing personal jurisdiction, that still would not negate personal jurisdiction. “Regardless of the motive of the purchaser,” the court noted, “Tradex purposely directed two sales of each of the allegedly infringing products to customers in Wisconsin.” That was sufficient to permit it to be hauled into court in Wisconsin.

Validity of copyright registrations. The court also refused to find J.J. Keller’s copyright registrations to be invalid. Tradex argued that J.J. Keller registered a copyright only with respect to the text of its products and therefore its claim to allegedly infringing design elements would have to fail. But J.J. Keller followed clear Copyright Office guidance, the court noted. Indeed, the court noted, where a work contains both literary elements as well as design elements, Office regulations provide that the application “should be submitted in the class most appropriate to the predominant type of authorship in the work as a whole.” Thus, the court noted, the fact that J.J. Keller submitted its applications as a literary work “reflects only that this classification predominated over other elements; it does not constitute a disclaimer of any other protectible aspect of the works.”

Nor did it matter that J.J. Keller’s alleged copyrights pertained to blank forms, the court found. “The degree of design originality or creativity necessary to render a form protectable is comparatively minimal,” the court noted. Indeed, even when it comes to drafting forms to comply with government submission requirements, as here, the court noted, the requisite originality may be reflected in “choice and size of font, the size of cells and columns, whether and where to use color, the wording of labels and headings, and whether to use boldface or italics for column headings.” Because those design elements of J.J. Keller’s works were copyrightable, the court reasoned, Tradex had failed to prove that J.J. Keller’s copyright claims must be dismissed.

Finally, the court found, it was not true—contrary to Tradex’s contention—that its copyright in one of the forms covered only the French translation of that document. “Although the copy presented to the court is barely legible,” the court noted, “the court can discern that the registration refers to both the English terms and their French translation. Thus, the French translation appears to be merely a derivative work of the registered English work.” Both were entitled to protection as a result.

DMCA claims. The court also declined to dismiss the claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). J.J. Keller’s works, the court noted, all contained copyright management information such as the name of, and other identifying information about, the copyright owner of the work. On each of Tradex’s versions, by contrast, the court noted, J.J. Keller’s copyright management information was absent—and instead, in roughly the same space, there appeared a copyright logo for Buck USA. “It is difficult to envision a more straightforward claim” under the DMCA, the court found.

Nor could Tradex get off the hook—at least at this stage—by contending that it started from a blank slate and simply added its own copyright notice. To be sure, the court noted, there was “some authority” that a DMCA claim will not lie if, rather than starting from the copyrighted work and removing the copyright management information, the infringer simply started from scratch and created an infringing work that omitted the copyright information. “The idea is that there can be no removal or alteration of copyright management information if it was not there in the first place,” the court noted. “Failing to add it in a recreation of a copyrighted work is not the same.” But at the motion to dismiss stage, the court emphasized, the standard was merely plausibility, and all inferences are drawn in favor of the plaintiff. “It is certainly plausible that, rather than merely recreating J.J. Keller’s works, Tradex created its allegedly infringing works by starting from J.J. Keller’s works,” the court noted. That was enough to defeat the motion.

Trade dress. The court also declined to dismiss J.J. Keller’s trade dress claims. Tradex argued that the claims failed because J.J. Keller did not provide factual evidence to support its requirement that its alleged color trade dress, overlapping with its copyright claims, “ha[d] become distinctive in the minds of consumers.” Indeed, Tradex argued, exhibits attached by J.J. Keller itself showed “multiple third-party uses of the same exact colors for identical goods.” But this was not enough to defeat the trade dress claim at this stage of the proceedings, the court found. “The presence of other imitators may ultimately undermine a trade dress claim,” the court acknowledged. “But even widespread imitation does not necessarily merit dismissal at the pleading stage where all reasonable inferences are drawn in favor of the plaintiff.” After all, the court emphasized, “widespread imitation may itself be proof that the plaintiff’s trade dress has, in fact, obtained a secondary meaning on which others seek to capitalize.” Moreover, the court noted, rather than J.J. Keller having acquiesced in these uses, Tradex itself acknowledged that most of the sellers of similar products were Chinese companies—companies that “may be beyond J.J. Keller’s practical reach,” the court observed. The claim would go forward for now.

Preliminary injunction. But while J.J. Keller would continue to move forward with its claims, it would not be entitled to a preliminary injunction. To be sure, the court noted, Keller had amply established a likelihood of success on the merits. But where it failed, the court observed, was on the prong of irreparable harm. Although J.J. Keller explained how it had allegedly lost sales, incurred increased advertising costs, and been forced to lower prices as a result of Tradex’s infringement, the court noted, “these sorts of damages are largely compensable through monetary damages, and thus J.J. Keller has an adequate remedy at law.”

Nor did J.J. Keller explain how its alleged loss of goodwill and reputation would cause irreparable harm, the court noted. Notably, the court observed, the underlying products were “consumables that are likely to garner frequent recurring purchases.” Thus, even if J.J. Keller loses customers while this action is pending, the court reasoned that there was “every reason to believe that the customer would return to purchasing J.J. Keller’s products” if it prevailed. In other words, the court noted, there was “no reason to suspect that the purchase of Tradex’s forms would lead a J.J. Keller customer to transfer its goodwill to Tradex such that the customer would stick with Tradex if it then chose to develop a new non-infringing competing product.” Any alleged harm could be adequately remedied with money damages.

The Case is No. 1:25-cv-01321-BBC.

Judge: Conway, B.

Attorneys: Ethan J. Bercot (Michael Best & Friedrich LLP) for JJ Keller & Associates Inc. Justen S. Barks (Barks PLLC) for Tradex Global Inc.

Companies: JJ Keller & Associates Inc.; Tradex Global Inc.

Cases: Copyright Trademark WisconsinNews