Selected cases (21-cv-1280): The latest development of KTM cases represented by American HSP law firm.

Case information

Plaintiff: KTM AG

Attorney: Hughes Socol PIers Resnick & Dym Ltd

Case number: 2021-cv-01280

Time of prosecution: March 8, 2021

Prosecuting court: U.S. Northern District Court of Illinois.

Plaintiff information

KTM AG is a manufacturer of motorcycles in the Austrian town of Mattighofen. Its fist product is off-road motorcycles. Due to its excellent performance, there is often a spectacular scene in Dakar where the top five drivers are driving KTM chariots. It has won the grand prize in many off-road competitions and is widely respected by everyone.

Case progress

On March 8, 2021, KTM AG entrusted its attorney to file a lawsuit in the Northern District Court of Illinois, USA, and submitted a TRO application to the court on the same day, which included a series of motions such as temporary injunction, domain name transfer and property preservation. The judge in charge held a hearing on TRO application on March 15th and approved the application. On March 25th, the plaintiff applied to the court for an extension of TRO, and on the 26th, the court approved the extension to April 12th.

On April 13th, the court issued a summons to the defendant in this case. There are a large number of defendants in this case, including many individuals, companies, limited liability companies, partnerships and unincorporated groups such as Moto-Bike GP, Motorcycle Parts Us, Moving Life and MX Auto Parts. On the same day, the plaintiff also filed a preliminary injunction application with the court, and the court held a hearing on the preliminary injunction application on April 20 and approved the application.

From April 21 to June, several defendants entrusted lawyers to respond to the lawsuit, and a fierce game of litigation procedures and measures was launched between the plaintiff and several defendants. Several defendants successively put forward motions to reject the plaintiff’s request, to apply for lifting and modifying the preliminary injunction, etc., and some defendants filed counterclaims, and the plaintiff also actively responded by applying for extension of the injunction, defense and extension. In the fierce litigation game, on May 26th, the plaintiff’s preliminary injunction was completely lifted. So far, this is a powerful counterattack by the seller against the plaintiff HSP law firm!

On July 7, 2021, the latest news showed that after nearly two months of fierce litigation measures, the original defendant and the defendant reached a withdrawal agreement that some of them could be prosecuted again and some of them could not be prosecuted again. On July 9th, the defendant filed a motion for failure to state a claim that the plaintiff’s claim was unclear and insufficient, but this motion was rejected by the court and will be heard on August 4th.

In the following period, the attorney of the plaintiff KTM obviously felt the pressure and put forward motions to extend the time one after another. According to the latest news, the plaintiff should reply to the defendant on July 23rd at the latest.

Of course, among the plaintiffs and defendants responding to the lawsuit, many sellers with less frozen amount chose to settle, as follows (the screenshot only shows some sellers):

In the KTM case, if there is no infringement and there is a lot of money, it is actually a good choice to find a responding lawyer, so that some American law firms can know that our sellers in China are not so easy to provoke (there were sellers who were sued for paying hundreds of thousands of RMB six months ago, and the law firms treated them as defendants again a few months later, which was really annoying).