Marc Jacobs, the iconic fashion house owned by luxury conglomerate LVMH, is now facing intense judicial scrutiny – not over its runway collections or marketing, but over its legal strategy in fighting counterfeit goods. A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois has raised serious concerns about the way the brand is pursuing anti-counterfeiting litigation, signaling a potential turning point in how modern intellectual property enforcement is conducted in the fashion industry.
“Schedule A” litigation has become a popular tool for brands seeking to combat rampant online counterfeiting. Under this approach, a rights holder can file a single lawsuit listing dozens or even hundreds of anonymous defendants – often identified only by usernames or storefront IDs – on a sealed list known as “Schedule A”.
The strategy is designed for speed and efficiency. Once the lawsuit is filed, plaintiffs often request ex parte relief such as temporary restraining orders, which can freeze assets and disrupt counterfeit operations before sellers are even notified. It has been especially prevalent in e-commerce counterfeiting cases, where sellers may use anonymous accounts and swiftly change storefronts to evade enforcement.
In the case at issue, Marc Jacobs initially filed a Schedule A complaint in November 2025 that named more than a dozen online sellers allegedly offering counterfeit products. Within days, however, the brand dismissed most of those defendants and amended its complaint to focus on a single seller identified by a username.
According to the court’s order, that same defendant had been named in three earlier Schedule A cases brought by Marc Jacobs in the same district. In each instance, the brand grouped multiple defendants together but then pared down the list after a judge had been assigned.
Judge John Robert Blakey expressed concern that this pattern could reflect more than aggressive enforcement – it may amount to judge shopping and manipulation of federal procedures. In his December 4 order, he warned that repeatedly naming the same defendants across multiple cases, then narrowing the field once a favorable judge is assigned, “suggests that [Marc Jacobs] lacks a good faith factual and legal basis to join the defendants in a single proceeding”. The judge said this conduct could amount to abuse of process.
At the heart of the dispute is a tension within modern litigation: balancing the need for efficient mechanisms to fight counterfeiting with the constitutional and procedural rights of defendants. Courts have increasingly questioned whether mass joinder under Schedule A satisfies the requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and whether rushed, sealed filings that seek ex parte relief are fully compatible with due process protections.
Judicial criticism of Schedule A tactics is not new. Previous rulings in the same district criticized sealed filings as an attempt to “sneak up on defendants” and highlihted the challenges courts face when anonymous online sellers are lumped together despite limited shared factual grounds for joinder.
In asking Marc Jacobs to justify its strategy, the Illinois court is signaling that aggressive anti-counterfeiting measures cannot bypass core procedural safeguards or tilt the litigation process toward tactical advantage. The brand must now show that its repeated use of Schedule A litigation is grounded in legitimate enforcement needs – not a procedural game to secure a sympathetic judge.
This development could have wider implications for how luxury brands protect their intellectual property online. Schedule A cases have been adopted widely beyond fashion, including in the automotive and sports industries. But mounting judicial skepticism could narrow the scope of acceptable practices or prompt reforms in how courts handle mass joinder and anonymous defendants in counterfeiting disputes.
If courts begin to rein in aggressive Schedule A tactics, brands may need to rethink how they structure their enforcement strategies – balancing speed and scale with procedural correctness and fair treatment of defendants.
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Author: Marília de Oliveira Fogaça, Thaís de Kassia R. Almeida Penteado and Cesar Peduti Filho, Peduti Advogados.
Source: Marc Jacobs Faces Scrutiny Over “Schedule A” Strategy + https://www.thefashionlaw.com/marc-jacobs-faces-scrutiny-over-schedule-a-strategy/
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“If you want to learn more about this topic, contact the author or the managing partner, Dr. Cesar Peduti Filho.”