Standing Orders: Guardrails on Schedule A Litigation

For years, the Schedule A Defendants scheme was a one-way enforcement machine. Plaintiffs would file a single complaint naming hundreds or thousands of anonymous online sellers. Federal judges in the Northern District of Illinois would rubber-stamp emergency relief before any defendant even knew they were being sued. The seller's first notice was usually their frozen bank account and a suspension notice from Amazon. But something has shifted in 2026. Federal courts across the country are finally saying what academics and defense lawyers have been saying for years: Schedule A standing orders are rewriting the rules, and the vending machine is broken.

The tragic irony of the Schedule A litigation business model is that intellectual property deserves vigorous protection. Counterfeiting is real. Copyright infringement matters. Trademark rights are not free-for-alls. But somewhere along the way, a legitimate enforcement tool became a settlement extraction machine. The tool was the ex parte temporary restraining order, the vehicle was anonymous mass litigation, and the damage was staggering and largely invisible.

How the Mechanics of Schedule A Actually Worked

Let us be clear about the mechanics. A plaintiff would file a complaint against Schedule A Defendants, meaning the real defendants were listed in an exhibit rather than in the caption. The complaint named anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand seller accounts, mostly Chinese nationals selling goods on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and similar platforms. The claims ranged from trademark infringement to copyright violation to design patent misuse, sometimes all three at once.

But here is where the scheme became abusive. The plaintiff would simultaneously file an ex parte motion for a temporary restraining order, meaning the defendants got no notice and no chance to be heard. The court would grant the TRO on an emergency basis. Within hours or days, Amazon would de-list the storefronts. PayPal would freeze the funds. Stripe would shut down the payment processing. The seller would lose their entire revenue stream before they even knew a lawsuit existed.

The sealed record problem made it worse. Many courts sealed the complaint and case number at the plaintiff's request, ostensibly to protect "trade secrets" or preserve the element of surprise. The seller would discover their account suspension and have to hunt through court records to find out why. By the time they found the case number, a settlement demand was already in their inbox.

The leverage was entirely one-sided by design. The plaintiff controlled the timing, the secrecy, and the speed. The defendant was playing catch-up from day one. A Chinese seller with no U.S. attorney, no familiarity with federal procedure, and a frozen bank account is not in a negotiating position. They are in a capitulation position. And capitulation is exactly what the scheme was designed to achieve.

Potential Guardrails: Standing & Routine Orders

Then came the court response. In October 2025, the District of New Jersey adopted a standing order that reframed Schedule A TROs as extraordinary relief, not routine filings. The court stated plainly that it will not grant ex parte TROs as a matter of course. Instead, it demanded a sound factual and legal basis for personal jurisdiction over each defendant or group of defendants acting under the same operator. It limited plaintiffs to a single defendant or group per complaint per filing fee. No more thousand-defendant fishing expeditions with a single filing fee.

Many Judges in the Northern District of Illinois have standing orders on their Judge’s pages or routinely enter orders requiring more of a showing. Judge Kness is well known for this. But others such as Judges Cummings, Alexakis, Coleman, and Daniel are also requiring plaintiffs to make early showings at the outset.

This was not a denial of relief. It was a reset of baseline expectations. The court was saying: you want extraordinary relief? Show us why these specific defendants have committed infringement. Show us that we actually have jurisdiction. Show us that an ex parte order is truly necessary. Do not expect us to trust your representations on faith. Do not expect the bench to be a rubber stamp.

Standing and routine orders addressing Schedule A practice are trending towards the norm rather than the exception. And the effect is real. Plaintiffs are filing fewer complaints. The complaints that do get filed name fewer defendants. The TRO motions are receiving more scrutiny. The scheme is not dead, but it is severely wounded.

What Has Changed

The practical difference is significant. A defendant in a Schedule A case filed today has advantages that did not exist three years ago. The ex parte TRO is no longer assumed to be forthcoming. A personal jurisdiction argument is no longer a futile gesture. The sealed record practice is under heightened scrutiny. And most importantly, the entire federal judiciary is now aware that the scheme exists and that it is problematic.

This does not mean that plaintiffs cannot obtain emergency relief. It means they have to earn it. They have to show actual harm, real infringement, and a factual basis for jurisdiction. They cannot just name every seller in a product category and hope that one of them settles rather than respond.

The reform is incomplete. Thousands of sellers have already been caught in the trap. Many settled because the leverage was so one-sided that resistance seemed futile. Some had their accounts frozen for months while fighting cases that ultimately went nowhere. The harm is real and it is irreversible for those who experienced it. But going forward, the playing field has tilted back toward something resembling fairness.

The Bigger Picture

This matters because IP enforcement is important. Counterfeiting damages legitimate businesses. Copyright theft has real consequences. Trademark rights need teeth. But enforcement mechanisms can be perverted just as easily as they can be deployed properly. The Schedule A Scheme proved that proposition. A tool designed to protect intellectual property was hijacked into a settlement extraction scheme. It is appropriate that courts are pushing back.

The standing order movement is not hostile to IP rights. It is hostile to abusive litigation. Intellectual property law has better things to do than subsidize legalized shakedowns. That is a win for the entire IP ecosystem. It is a win for legitimate rights holders who want courts to take their claims seriously. And it is a win for the innocent sellers who got caught in the crossfire. I both bring and defend Schedule A cases. It is not hard to do them correctly. More time consuming, sure. But it should be before assets are frozen without notice.

What Comes Next

No doubt, empirical studies will keep coming. The standing orders will keep spreading. Some plaintiff's bar will adapt and file more narrowly, which is fine. Some will resist and lose TRO motions, which is appropriate. The scheme will not disappear entirely, but it will become a tactical choice rather than a default playbook.

For defendants in Schedule A cases, the situation today is materially better than it was in 2023. You still need an attorney. You still need to move fast. But you are no longer playing a rigged game. The courts have finally caught up to what the academics and the defense bar have been saying: the SAD Scheme is an abuse of process, and standing orders are the corrective mechanism.

If you or your company are facing a Schedule A lawsuit or a sudden account suspension with IP claims attached, do not assume you have to settle. The landscape has changed. Contact Jonathan Phillips to discuss your options. Reach out at jlap@pb-iplaw.com or call (309) 643-6518 to discuss your case. Your rights and defenses may be stronger than you think