Suing a Foreign Infringer: A Practitioner's Guide to Jurisdiction, Service, Extraterritorial Reach, and Collection
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on extraterritoriality, and it assumes you know why Abitron changed the question from "who was harmed here" to "who acted here." It runs a cross-border enforcement matter through fifteen stages, from identifying who is actually behind a listing to collecting on a judgment against an entity you have never met. It supplies a weapon-selection table comparing federal court, the International Trade Commission, customs recordation, platform takedowns, and foreign litigation on speed, cost, and what each can actually deliver. It works through a personal jurisdiction analysis built around Rule 4(k)(2), which most practitioners forget exists, and a service plan that treats the Hague Convention as one option rather than the only one. It explains the asset-freeze problem created by Grupo Mexicano and the equitable workaround that online-counterfeiting plaintiffs rely on, then gives a realistic account of taking discovery in jurisdictions with blocking statutes and data-transfer restrictions. It closes with the part nobody plans for - what a default judgment against a foreign shell is worth, and the three ways to make it worth something.
IP and Technology > Trademarks | Guide | Published 14 December 2024 - Updated 25 April 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on extraterritoriality, and it assumes you know why Abitron changed the question from "who was harmed here" to "who acted here." It runs a cross-border enforcement matter through fifteen stages, from identifying who is actually behind a listing to collecting on a judgment against an entity you have never met. It supplies a weapon-selection table comparing federal court, the International Trade Commission, customs recordation, platform takedowns, and foreign litigation on speed, cost, and what each can actually deliver. It works through a personal jurisdiction analysis built around Rule 4(k)(2), which most practitioners forget exists, and a service plan that treats the Hague Convention as one option rather than the only one. It explains the asset-freeze problem created by Grupo Mexicano and the equitable workaround that online-counterfeiting plaintiffs rely on, then gives a realistic account of taking discovery in jurisdictions with blocking statutes and data-transfer restrictions. It closes with the part nobody plans for — what a default judgment against a foreign shell is worth, and the three ways to make it worth something.
Keywords: personal jurisdiction foreign defendant · rule 4(k)(2) · hague service convention · service by email rule 4(f)(3) · water splash v menon · in rem domain jurisdiction · asset freeze grupo mexicano · section 1782 discovery · hague evidence convention · aerospatiale · default judgment foreign defendant · judgment enforcement abroad · itc exclusion order · cbp recordation · abitron domestic use pleading · marketplace takedown · payment processor freeze · chinese blocking statutes · foreign counsel coordination
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