Case Highlight | Three Days to Defeat TRO and Preliminary Injunction Motions in the Eastern District of Virginia

LawMay attorneys recently represented a cross-border e-commerce client in a U.S. utility patent infringement action. On July 24, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held a hearing on the plaintiff's motions for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") and a preliminary injunction ("PI") and denied all of the plaintiff's injunction requests from the bench.

This was not a typical Schedule A mass action but a utility patent case brought against a single defendant. Compared with Schedule A matters — characterized by mass freezes and rapid settlement — such actions are usually more targeted, the plaintiff's up-front investment is higher, and its litigation objectives are more defined. When the client engaged LawMay, the injunction hearing was three days away. Within that window the team completed a prior-action investigation, an analysis of the asserted patent, a prior art search, and a written opposition, and appeared at the hearing on the client's behalf, ultimately preventing emergency injunctive relief from issuing.

Background

The plaintiff alleged that products the client sold through cross-border e-commerce platforms infringed its U.S. utility patent, and moved promptly after filing for a TRO and a PI, seeking to bar the client from continuing to sell the accused products before the case reached ordinary proceedings.

After taking the matter, the LawMay team's investigation revealed that the plaintiff had twice previously moved for a TRO in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois — on the same patent, against the same defendant, and as to the same accused products. Because the plaintiff failed to submit facts and evidence sufficient to support personal jurisdiction, that court dismissed both its original and amended complaints and twice declined to issue a TRO. With the earlier action not yet finally concluded, the plaintiff turned to the Eastern District of Virginia, filed this case, and again sought emergency relief. Neither the earlier action nor those rulings were disclosed in the complaint, the injunction papers, or the civil cover sheet in this case.

Our Approach

LawMay pursued three principal lines of defense.

I. Fundamental Defects in the Procedural and Jurisdictional Basis

We first brought to the court's attention the plaintiff's earlier action in the Northern District of Illinois and its two TRO applications there, and noted that the plaintiff was seeking substantially the same emergency relief in a second court while the earlier action remained pending.

At the same time, the plaintiff had failed to submit evidence sufficient to establish contacts between the defendant and Virginia adequate to support personal jurisdiction, and had not effected formal service on a defendant located in China under the Hague Service Convention. In opposing the injunction, LawMay expressly reserved its personal jurisdiction and service defenses.

II. Substantial Questions as to Validity and Infringement

After analyzing the claims, specification, and prosecution history of the asserted patent, the team found that the core claims the plaintiff relied on contained technical language of unclear meaning, and that the plaintiff's infringement comparison did not adequately explain how the accused products satisfied every limitation.

The team further located third-party products and U.S. patent literature published before the asserted patent's filing date, raising substantial challenges to the novelty and non-obviousness of the relevant claims. Accordingly, even on the plaintiff's proposed construction, whether the accused products infringed remained genuinely disputed; and if the claims were construed broadly enough to cover the accused products, their validity faced substantial problems.

III. Failure to Establish Irreparable Harm

We showed that the plaintiff's data did not establish that the harm it alleged was caused by the client's sales. Certain operating metrics had begun to decline before the conduct alleged against the defendant and subsequently recovered; and part of the loss the plaintiff claimed was directly measurable in money. The plaintiff therefore failed to establish causation between the alleged harm and the accused conduct, or that the losses could not be remedied by monetary damages.

Ruling

On July 24, 2026, the Eastern District of Virginia held the TRO and PI hearing. After argument, the presiding judge denied all of the plaintiff's injunction requests from the bench. The court subsequently entered a written order confirming the denial of the TRO and PI motions and directing the defendant to respond to the complaint within a set period.

At the hearing, the judge also commented on the overall deficiencies in the case and suggested that the defendant consider challenging the action as a whole by motion to dismiss.

Team Comment

The difficulty here lay not only in the utility patent dispute itself — claim construction, prior art searching, and technical infringement comparison — but in the fact that this was not a typical Schedule A mass action.

A patent case brought against a single defendant generally means the plaintiff has invested more in pre-suit investigation and counsel, that its objectives are more targeted, and that its willingness to press on is greater. Even where emergency relief is denied, a plaintiff may still shore up jurisdiction, complete service, and pursue the merits. Such cases are therefore rarely disposed of through simple procedural responses or a quick, low-cost settlement.

The client engaged us three days before the hearing. In that period the LawMay team completed the prior-action investigation, procedural analysis, review of the asserted claims, prior art searching, analysis of the damages evidence, and the written opposition. Most significantly, through independent investigation the team uncovered the plaintiff's earlier action and its two prior TRO applications on the same patent, the same defendant, and the same accused products, and built a defense combining procedural and substantive grounds on that basis.

With time severely constrained, the plaintiff comparatively well prepared, and the action closely targeted, the court denied all TRO and PI relief from the bench — sparing the client the immediate risk of having to halt sales and laying the groundwork for a further challenge by motion to dismiss.

The matter shows again that an issued patent does not by itself support emergency injunctive relief. Facing a targeted utility patent action, speed matters — but what matters more is completing the procedural investigation, the technical analysis, and the organization of evidence within a limited window, and identifying precisely the issues capable of undermining the basis for an injunction.

This case summary is provided for informational purposes only. Outcomes depend on the specific facts, evidence, applicable law, and the court's discretion in each matter. Past results do not guarantee or predict similar outcomes in future matters.