Personal Jurisdiction, or in personam jurisdiction, refers to the power of a court to hear and determine a lawsuit involving a defendant by virtue of the defendant’s having some contact with the place where the court is located. In Plixer International, Inc. v. Scrutinizer GMBH, No. 18-1195 (1st Cir. 2018), the First Circuit Court of Appeals held that personal jurisdiction was established over a foreign defendant who received business in the U.S. under the minimum contacts analysis, even though that company had no physical presence in the U.S.
The Defendant, a German corporation which runs a “self-service platform” that helps customers build better software, was sued by the Plaintiff for infringing on its U.S. registered trademark. The Defendant’s website is in English, but customers must pay in euros and the company’s standard contract includes forum selection and choice of law clauses that provide all lawsuits relating to the contract be brought in German courts under German law. Between January 2014 and June 2017, the Defendant served 156 U.S. customers in 30 states earning around $200,000.
Judge Lynch noted the “baseline principle” that had emerged. “A website operator does not necessarily purposely avail itself of the benefits and protections of every state in which its website is accessible.” However, the court stated that the Defendant had gone further than making its website accessible by engaging in “sizeable and continuing commerce with U.S. customers.” The court further noted that if the defendant did not want U.S. customers, they could have designed its site not to interact with American users or they could have posted a disclaimer that its service was not intended for U.S. users.
A link to the Opinion can be found below:
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/18-1195/18-1195-2018-09-13.html
This article was written by Ryan Hansen, Law Clerk
