IP Law Daily, TRADEMARK—N.D. Ill.: Default judgment against Chinese defendant vacated for lack of personal jurisdiction, (Sep 16, 2026)

By Glenn Borst, J.D., LL.M.

The defendant was served by electronic means, but the plaintiff, the manufacturer of UGG boots, did not exercise reasonable due diligence in ascertaining whether a physical address could be obtained.

A footwear manufacturer sued a company in China for trademark infringement, serving it by email, but the default judgment it obtained was vacated due to lack of jurisdiction. Deckers Outdoor Corporation holds a registered trademark on a footwear brand and sued several e-commerce companies for infringement on that trademark. The district court allowed service of process by electronic means, and several defendants were defaulted for failure to appear. One defendant, Litfun, moved to vacate the judgment for lack of personal jurisdiction, as well as for sanctions against the plaintiff’s attorney. The court vacated the judgment but denied sanctions (Deckers Outdoor Corp. v. Litfun, No. 1:25-cv-10080 (N.D. Ill. Sep. 14, 2026)).

Deckers manufactures footwear products, most recognizably UGG boots. It holds a registered trademark on a particular boot, the UGG Tasman, which includes design elements protected by the Tasman Trade Dress. Deckers sued a number of e-commerce companies (“Schedule A defendants”) for trade dress infringement and deceptive trade practices. Most of the 30 original defendants were Chinese companies. Deckers moved for electronic service, which was granted, authorizing service by email and electronic publication. It then moved for default judgments against 18 of the defendants that failed to answer the complaint, and the court issued judgments against them. One defendant, Litfun, moved to have the default judgment vacated for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Email service. Deckers obtained the court’s permission to serve the defendants by email pursuant to F.R.C.P. 4(f)(3). At the time of service, several courts in the Northern District of Illinois permitted service of process by email on Chinese defendants. However, the Seventh Circuit later held that email service into China was forbidden by the Hague Convention (Kangol LLC v. Hangzhou Chuanyue Silk Import & Export Co., 177 F.4th 793, 797 (7th Cir. 2026)). The relevant part of that Convention does not apply where the address of the person being served is not known. Courts require plaintiffs suing a Schedule A defendant to make reasonably diligent efforts to determine the defendant’s mailing address before declaring that address to be unknown.

Plaintiff’s search. Deckers searched for the address associated with Litfun’s Amazon account on Google Maps, Bing Maps, and Baidu Maps, without success, although the search indicated that a building was shown to be present in at least one of the searches, although not tied to the defendant. Litfun argued that although it did not register with those map applications, it was registered with two other “well-known” public databases in China. The court found that Deckers’ efforts were inadequate, and that if a building is indicated, then the plaintiff had to take additional steps to ensure that the defendant is not located there, beyond relying on three search engines.

Reasonable diligence. The plaintiff’s efforts to locate the defendant were inadequate. Reasonable diligence required that Deckers use something other than a regular search engine, such as a specialized corporate directory or database. Or, it could have sent a representative to the physical address to confirm that Litfun was not operating there. Because Deckers’ efforts to find Litfun’s address were inadequate, the judgment was void for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Sanctions. Litfun moved for sanctions, arguing that Deckers had “engaged in egregious judge shopping.” However, the court found that Deckers was simply adapting to the fact that judges in that district had differing views on how to apply the rules of permissive joinder in e-commerce infringement cases. The court did not find Deckers to be in bad faith, and sanctions were denied. Whether it was too late to try for proper service was left for future proceedings.

The Case is No. 1:25-cv-10080.

Judge: Shah, M.

Attorneys: Amy Crout Ziegler (Greer, Burns & Crain Ltd.) for Deckers Outdoor Corp. Michael R. La Porte (Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig PLLC) for Litfun.

Companies: Deckers Outdoor Corp.

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