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Intellectual Property

What To Do If Served With A Southern District Of Florida Complaint For Damages And Injunctive Relief

The Southern District of Florida tends to be one of the most popular jurisdictions for plaintiffs, particularly those with intellectual property claims such as copyright infringement and trademark infringement, to file Complaints that seek damages and injunctive relief. Oftentimes, plaintiffs and their law firms are able to convince judges to enter orders that grant temporary restraining orders, resulting in desperately needed funds being frozen by third parties such as Amazon or Stripe.

If you have found yourself or your company in a situation where you have a case pending in the Southern District of Florida (or perhaps even the Middle District of Florida), then feel free to contact us with some information about your particular case or controversy. We have lawyers licensed in both jurisdictions and promise to keep all communications confidential. You will likely be pleasantly surprised with how quickly we respond to your inquiry.

There are a variety of law firms that specialize in this type of intellectual property litigation on behalf of plaintiffs in the Southern District of Florida. They include but are not limited to, SRIP Law, Stephen M. Gaffigan, P.A., The Law Offices of Jared W. Gasman, P.A., and Humberto Rubio & CIA – Rubio & Associates. We have dealt with all of them, effectively resolving cases as quickly as possible and with as steep of a discount as available because, after all, there is no point in overly litigating these matters if it just means that you are going to end up coming out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars to your own legal counsel.

It is common for these actions to include a variety of claims. Typical claims are federal trademark counterfeiting and infringement, false designation of origin, common law unfair competition, and common law trademark infringement pursuant to 15 U.S.C. §§1114, 1116, and 1125(a), and Florida’s common law.

Oftentimes, defendants are companies and individuals who are not residents of the United States. We have represented many such people and corporate entities in these types of cases. Complaints will commonly state that the defendants have the capacity to be sued pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17(b) and that they are engaged in business in Florida but have not appointed an agent for service of process.

The worst thing that a defendant can do is ignore the important early stages of this type of litigation. After a temporary restraining order (TRO) is entered, the plaintiff will often push hard for the imposition of a preliminary injunction. Once entered, it will drain your resources in attempting to void same. But even then, you don’t want to ignore the orders, particularly if it means that you have a significant amount of assets frozen by third parties.

Litigation at the federal level, and particularly litigation involving intellectual property, requires a specific set of skills and experience. The plaintiffs’ firms that have been operating in this space for some time are well aware when they are up against a seasoned defense litigator as opposed to someone who may be a friend of a defendant’s family. We have the requisite experience and knowledge of the space to help you and put you in the best position possible to escape protracted litigation as well as enhanced damages.