Yinnv Liu v. Monthly

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 25-2074
Y INNV LIU,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
M ONTHLY , et al.,
Defendants-Appellants.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:24-cv-02982 — John Robert Blakey, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED F EBRUARY 20, 2026 — DECIDED M ARCH 31, 2026
____________________
Before R OVNER , K IRSCH , and M ALDONADO, Circuit Judges.
K IRSCH , Circuit Judge. Yinnv Liu sued hundreds of online
vendors for allegedly infringing upon her registered trade-
mark. Because the defendants failed to appear in district
court, the court entered default judgment against them. When
they eventually appeared, the defendants moved to vacate the
default judgment, arguing primarily that the district court
lacked personal jurisdiction. The district court denied the de-
fendants’ motion, reasoning that jurisdiction was appropriate

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2 No. 25-2074
because the defendants operated online stores accessible in
the United States, offered shipping to the United States, and
had sold allegedly infringing products to Illinois residents.
Because we find that no such sales took place, and the remain-
ing facts in support of personal jurisdiction are insufficient,
we vacate the default judgment and remand the case for dis-
missal.
I
Yinnv Liu possesses a registered trademark for three styl-
ized Chinese characters. In April 2024, Liu filed suit against
hundreds of foreign entities for trademark infringement,
counterfeiting, and false designation of origin in violation of
the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1114, 1125(a)(1)(A). All of the en-
tities, listed on a document attached to Liu’s complaint, were
vendors operating e-commerce stores through platforms such
as Walmart.com and eBay.com. Suits of this nature are known
as Schedule A cases. As here, Schedule A cases typically allege
trademark, copyright, or patent infringement by online mer-
chants located overseas. Because the defendants are too nu-
merous to list in the complaint, they are identified separately
in a Schedule A document attached to the complaint.
As relevant to this appeal, Monthly, 268 Joybuy 12573, 269
Joybuy 10253, 272 Joybuy 7323, 273 Joybuy 8504, 279 Joybuy
12574, 288 Joybuy 12907, 289 Joybuy 12516, 293 Joybuy 12634,
295 Joybuy 7326, 296 Joybuy 12523, 298 Joybuy 12449, 301 Joy-
buy 12893, 338 Joybuy 12907, 339 Joybuy 12907, and 340 Joy-
buy 12907 (hereinafter, “the defendants”) were among those
sued. The defendants are based in China and concede that
they operated e-commerce stores on Walmart.com, which of-
fered shipping to Washington, D.C. and the 48 contiguous
states.

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No. 25-2074 3
The defendants never appeared before the court, so in Au-
gust 2024, the district court entered default judgment for Liu.
In its default judgment order, the court found that it had per-
sonal jurisdiction over the defendants because they “targeted
sales to Illinois residents by setting up and operating e-com-
merce stores that target United States consumers using one or
more seller aliases, offer shipping to the United States, includ-
ing Illinois, and have sold products … to residents of Illinois.”
The court’s conclusion that Illinois sales took place was based
on evidence, provided by Liu, that the defendants “stand
ready, willing and able to ship [their] counterfeit goods to
customers in Illinois.”
In January 2025, the defendants appeared for the first time
and moved to vacate the default judgment under Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 60(b). They argued that the district court
lacked personal jurisdiction over them and that they had not
been properly served with process. Liu never responded to
the motion to vacate, and the district court indicated that if
Liu failed to do so, it would grant the motion and vacate the
judgment as to the moving defendants. However, after Liu
did not respond, the district court denied the defendants’ mo-
tion. The court explained that it had previously found both
personal jurisdiction and proper service, and that the defend-
ants “offer[ed] no factual basis to revisit those prior findings.”
The defendants appeal the district court’s denial of their mo-
tion to vacate. Liu failed to appear on appeal. However, an
amicus appeared and moved to present oral argument in sup-
port of Liu and the district court’s decision, which we permit-
ted.

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4 No. 25-2074
II
We typically review the denial of a motion for relief under
Rule 60(b) for an abuse of discretion. Philos Techs., Inc. v. Philos
& D, Inc., 645 F.3d 851, 854 (7th Cir. 2011). But when a defend-
ant asserts that a judgment is void for lack of jurisdiction, the
standard of review is “less deferential,” because “no court has
the discretion to refuse to vacate [a] judgment once it recog-
nizes its lack of jurisdiction.” Id. at 854–55. We review a dis-
trict court’s resolution of the legal question about the exist-
ence of personal jurisdiction de novo and its related factual
findings for clear error. Philos Techs., Inc. v. Philos & D, Inc.,
802 F.3d 905, 911 (7th Cir. 2015). The defendant bears the bur-
den of proving the court’s lack of personal jurisdiction. Id.
“In a case involving federal question jurisdiction, a federal
court has personal jurisdiction over the defendant if either
federal law or the law of the state in which the court sits au-
thorizes service of process to that defendant.” NBA Props., Inc.
v. HANWJH, 46 F.4th 614, 620 (7th Cir. 2022) (citation modi-
fied). Since the Lanham Act doesn’t provide a federal rule for
personal jurisdiction, we look to Illinois law for the governing
rule. See id. Illinois’s long-arm statute provides that “[a] court
may also exercise jurisdiction on any other basis now or here-
after permitted by the Illinois Constitution and the Constitu-
tion of the United States.” 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/2-209(c).
There is no contention that the defendants are subject to
general personal jurisdiction in Illinois. For a defendant to be
subject to specific personal jurisdiction under the Due Process
Clause, three requirements must be met: (i) the defendant’s
contacts with the forum state must show that it purposefully
availed itself of the privilege of conducting business in the fo-
rum state or purposefully directed its activities at the state; (ii)

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No. 25-2074 5
the plaintiff’s alleged injury must have arisen out of the de-
fendant’s forum-related activities; and (iii) the exercise of per-
sonal jurisdiction must comport with traditional notions of
fair play and substantial justice. NBA Props., 46 F.4th at 623.
In the context of Schedule A litigation, a defendant’s oper-
ation of an online store accessible in the forum state, com-
bined with completed sales in the forum state, has been found
sufficient to subject that defendant to personal jurisdiction.
See id. at 623–27. However, when assessing a defendant’s
online contacts with a forum, we have cautioned that merely
“operat[ing] a website, even a highly interactive website, that
is accessible from, but does not target, the forum state” is not
enough to sustain jurisdiction. Curry v. Revolution Lab’ys, LLC,
949 F.3d 385, 400 (7th Cir. 2020) (citation modified); see NBA
Props., 46 F.4th at 624 (applying Curry in the Schedule A con-
text).
In its docket entry denying the defendants’ motion to va-
cate, the district court affirmed that it had personal jurisdic-
tion because the defendants operate e-commerce stores which
are accessible in and offer shipping to the United States,
through which Illinois residents have purchased products.
Yet there’s no evidence in the record of Illinois purchases. The
evidence upon which the district court relied shows only that
it was possible to order the defendants’ products and have
them shipped to Illinois, not that such sales took place. Those
records consist of screenshots of Walmart’s website showing
the checkout page with the infringing product, a Chicago
shipping address, and the estimated total, but not a com-
pleted purchase. Even Liu’s motion for a temporary restrain-
ing order, to which these screenshots were attached, asserted
only that the screenshots demonstrate that infringing

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6 No. 25-2074
products “were offered for sale to residents of the United
States, including Illinois residents,” not that they prove actual
sales in Illinois.
Therefore, the district court clearly erred in finding that
the defendants sold products to Illinois customers. Nor was
that error harmless. Without those sales, the court’s basis for
personal jurisdiction is merely that the defendants operated
online stores accessible in the United States, which offered
shipping to the United States. As we explained in Curry, more
is required to establish purposeful action by the defendant
and thus personal jurisdiction; a defendant may not be “haled
into court simply because the defendant owns or operates a
website that is accessible in the forum state.” 949 F.3d at 400
(citation modified). That’s true even if the website is “highly
interactive” and capable of accepting orders that would ship
to customers in the forum state. Id.; see also Advanced Tactical
Ordnance Sys., LLC v. Real Action Paintball, Inc., 751 F.3d 796,
799, 801 (7th Cir. 2014) (declining to find personal jurisdiction
even though the defendant had an interactive website capable
of accepting orders from Indiana citizens).
Because the district court clearly erred in finding that sales
took place in Illinois, and therefore legally erred in finding
that it had personal jurisdiction over the defendants, we need
not address the defendants’ arguments regarding service of
process. We vacate the default judgment and remand with in-
structions to dismiss the case against the defendants for want
of jurisdiction.
VACATED AND R EMANDED

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