Kiel James Patrick, LLC v. Partnerships & Unincorporated
Associations Identified on Schedule A, 2026 WL 3015613, C.A. No.
25-cv-633-MRD-AEM (D.R.I. Oct. 7, 2026)

KJP filed a Schedule A claim against a bunch of defendants
for false designation of origin/false advertising; many defaulted, while two
answered and got the TRO against them dissolved.  

KJP sells seasonal and festive sweaters; defendants sell
competing sweaters. The defendants argued that particularized review of the claims
against them was appropriate; KJP disagreed, arguing that the defendants
delayed unduly and pointing to the allegations the court had previously
accepted in granting and extending the TRO, which thereby became a preliminary
injunction. The court was not impressed by KJP’s argument.

False designation of origin: KJP failed to show that the
answering defendants used its photos. KJP alleged that, even if they didn’t copy
the photos exactly, they re-generated them using AI. (Why this would violate
the Lanham Act, especially given Dastar, is left as an exercise for the
reader.) The basic problem was that there was no evidence “that the challenged
images were copied from [KJP’s] website, altered from [its] photographs, or
generated by AI to impersonate [it].” Instead, the answering defendants offered
product-image evidence from an “independent sourcing agent, 1688.com,” as their
source. “A review of Plaintiff’s website further reveals that the images
submitted by the Answering Defendants look dissimilar to Plaintiff’s
advertising materials, even if there is some similarity between the sweaters.” That
similarity wasn’t confusion about origin.

False advertising: This was the same theory that defendants
used KJP’s advertising materials, particularly its website images, without
permission. KJP argued that defendants sold “imitation” products. But that’s
not a false representation, nor does it show consumer deception. “Furthermore,
there is no evidence on the current record that the Answering Defendants copied
Plaintiff’s trademarks or made a particular claim about their products that is
verifiably false or misleading.”

As Eric Goldman has often noted about Schedule A cases,
these allegations, at least as to these defendants, should have been thin
enough to deny the TRO; the plaintiff apparently didn’t supply convincing
pictures even when challenged to do so.

from Blogger https://tushnet.blogspot.com/2026/10/schedule-false-advertising-tro.html