Future Motion, Inc. v. Doe
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:21-cv-03022
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Future Motion v. John Doe, Judge Corley denied without prejudice email service on an unknown alleged foreign patent defendant, allowing renewal after more investigation.
Future Motion, Inc. and John Doe, the unknown party doing business as Floatwheel. The ruling concerned only how Future Motion could serve the lawsuit and did not decide the patent claims.
What happened
In Future Motion, Inc. v. John Doe, Future Motion alleged that an unknown person doing business as Floatwheel sold do-it-yourself self-balancing skateboard kits that infringed its patents. Because Future Motion did not know the person’s identity or physical address, it asked to serve the lawsuit by email.
The court found that the available evidence suggested the defendant was in China, although some evidence pointed to the United States. China and the United States are parties to an international service treaty, and Future Motion had not shown that the defendant’s address was truly unknown because it had not made enough efforts to locate a physical address or contacted one of the defendant’s available email addresses.
Judge Corley denied Future Motion’s motion without prejudice, meaning Future Motion may renew it after further investigation. The order resolved the motion identified as Docket No. 8, not the patent claims themselves.
The detailed version
- Future Motion, Inc. v. Doe · No. 4:21-cv-03022
- Yvonne Rogers
- June 10, 2021
Background
Future Motion, Inc. alleged that John Doe, an unknown party doing business as Floatwheel, sold do-it-yourself kits for assembling self-balancing skateboards through floatwheel.com. Future Motion alleged that the kits infringed patents connected to its Onewheel products and that the defendant encouraged infringement through instructional videos on a Floatwheel YouTube channel.
Future Motion had tried to identify the owner of the Floatwheel website and YouTube channel. It found that the website’s domain registration concealed the owner’s identity but stated that the owner was located in Guangxi, China. Counsel also communicated through the email address 425136673@qq.com, and the website later listed diyonewheel@gmail.com as a contact address for policy and shipping inquiries. Future Motion asked for permission to serve the summons and complaint by email under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f)(3), which permits court-ordered service on an individual in another country by methods not prohibited by an international agreement.
Legal standard
The court explained that alternative service under Rule 4(f)(3) is discretionary. The proposed method must also be reasonably calculated to notify the defendant about the lawsuit and provide an opportunity to respond. The fact that a method is not prohibited by an international agreement does not automatically establish that the plaintiff is entitled to use it.
Discussion
The court found the evidence about the defendant’s location equivocal. The Floatwheel YouTube channel indicated that the defendant was located in the United States, while the domain registration and the Chinese email provider suggested that the defendant was based in China. The court found the evidence suggesting China persuasive.
The United States and China are parties to the Hague Service Convention, an international treaty governing service of legal documents across borders. The court stated that the treaty’s requirements are mandatory but do not apply when the person’s address is not known. Future Motion had not yet shown that the defendant’s physical address was unknown. The court noted that Future Motion had checked the domain registry and the YouTube channel but had not otherwise investigated, including by contacting diyonewheel@gmail.com or determining whether that address could reveal physical-address information.
Because Future Motion had not shown that it had made diligent but unsuccessful efforts to locate the defendant’s physical address, the court concluded that service by email to China was prohibited by the international agreement and that service under Rule 4(f)(3) was not yet appropriate.
Disposition
The court denied without prejudice Future Motion’s motion to serve the defendant by email. The court stated that the motion could be renewed after further investigation and that the order disposed of Docket No. 8. The order did not decide the merits of Future Motion’s patent-infringement allegations.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.