Shenzhen Jisu Technology v. Schedule A Defendants: 10 Design Patents, Dismissed in 15 Days
Shenzhen Jisu Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics company, filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois asserting 10 design patents covering portable handheld turbo fans against unnamed Schedule A defendants. The case collapsed in 15 days after Jisu failed to identify defendants or plead infringing activity with sufficient specificity, resulting in dismissal without prejudice.
Portable fan design-patent suit ends before it begins on a pleading defect
On 12 August 2025, Shenzhen Jisu Technology Co. LTD. filed a design-patent infringement action in the Northern District of Illinois (Case No. 1:25-cv-09559) before Judge LaShonda A. Hunt. The complaint asserted ten US design patents — spanning application numbers US29/823606 through US29/935935 — all covering the ornamental design of portable handheld turbo fans, including products marketed under names such as the TurboBear, SWEETFULL, and Y32 Pro Mini Turbo Fan. The defendants were styled only as ‘The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified in Schedule A,’ a common e-commerce enforcement format.
On 19 August 2025, just seven days after filing, the court ordered Jisu to file an amended complaint by 26 August 2025 that specifically named each defendant and pleaded the alleged infringing activity with more than conclusory statements. Jisu did not file an amended complaint by the deadline. On 27 August 2025, the court dismissed the original complaint without prejudice and closed the case, terminating all pending deadlines as moot. A dismissal without prejudice means the plaintiff retains the right to refile a properly pleaded complaint.
A lifespan of only 15 days is unusually short even by the compressed standards of Schedule A litigation. The court’s order suggests the original complaint lacked the defendant-specific particularity increasingly required by Northern District of Illinois judges scrutinising anonymous e-commerce enforcement actions. Whether Jisu will refile with a revised strategy — individually identifying infringing sellers and mapping accused products to specific patent claims — remains unknown from the public record. The outcome provides no merits ruling on any of the ten asserted design patents.
Filing to Dismissed without Prejudice in 15 days
15-day lifespan — well below the median for Schedule A e-commerce cases, which typically run several months
Dismissed without prejudice: what the ruling means for both parties
Dismissed without prejudice for failure to amend
A dismissal without prejudice is a procedural termination: no merits ruling is made and the plaintiff’s claims are not extinguished. The court ordered an amended complaint to correct pleading deficiencies — specifically, failure to name defendants and allege infringing conduct beyond conclusory assertions. When Jisu missed the deadline, the court exercised its inherent case-management authority to dismiss. Jisu retains the legal right to refile, subject to applicable statutes of limitations.
No merits adjudicatedJisu retains the right to refile, but faces pleading scrutiny
Because the dismissal is without prejudice, Jisu’s ten design patents remain in force and fully enforceable. However, any refiled complaint must individually identify each defendant and plead specific infringing acts product-by-product. The public record does not indicate whether Jisu intends to refile. The missed amendment deadline may suggest resource constraints, a shift in enforcement strategy, or ongoing difficulty identifying anonymous sellers with sufficient evidentiary specificity.
Patents remain enforceableAnonymous defendants escape without a ruling — for now
The Schedule A defendants were never individually identified in the proceedings and received no substantive ruling in their favour. A without-prejudice dismissal offers no preclusion defence: if Jisu refiles and names specific sellers, those defendants cannot rely on this case as a bar to suit. Sellers of competing handheld turbo fan products should remain alert to potential refiling and monitor Jisu’s design patent portfolio.
No preclusive effectNorthern District scrutiny of Schedule A tactics is intensifying
This case is consistent with a broader trend of Northern District of Illinois judges requiring greater specificity in Schedule A omnibus complaints. Plaintiff companies relying on anonymous-defendant filings face mounting pressure to identify sellers individually and map accused products to specific patent claims before — or shortly after — filing. For cross-border e-commerce brands asserting design IP, this signals that bulk complaint strategies carry increasing procedural risk, regardless of the underlying patent strength.
Schedule A enforcement riskFull party and counsel information
| Role | Name | Type | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plaintiff | Shenzhen Jisu Technology Co. LTD. | Company | Consumer electronics company — holder of 10 design patents covering portable handheld turbo fansSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant | The Partnerships and Unicorporated Associations Identified in Schedule A | Individual | Anonymous e-commerce sellers identified only as Schedule A partnerships and unincorporated associationsSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff counsel | Qi Men | Attorney | Counsel for Shenzhen Jisu Technology Co. LTD.Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff law firm | Yk Law Llp | Law Firm | Representing Shenzhen Jisu Technology Co. LTD.Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Presiding judge | Judge LaShonda A. Hunt | Judge | Illinois Northern District CourtSearch in Eureka ↗ |
Official order — verbatim text
The court’s minute entry is procedural rather than substantive: the complaint is dismissed solely because plaintiff failed to comply with the court’s amendment order, not because the design patent claims were evaluated on their merits. The without-prejudice qualifier is legally significant — it preserves Jisu’s right to refile. The verdict contains no claim construction, no finding of infringement or non-infringement, and no ruling on patent validity. Both parties’ substantive positions remain entirely unresolved by this proceeding.
USD0999361S and 9 further US design patents — portable handheld turbo fan ornamental designs
The ten patents-in-suit are all US design patents (USD prefix), protecting the ornamental appearance — not the functional operation — of portable handheld turbo fans. Design patents grant the holder the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling articles with substantially the same visual appearance as the patented design. The portfolio spans multiple application series (US29/823604–823606 and US29/917050–935935), suggesting successive design iterations filed over a period of product development activity by Shenzhen Jisu Technology.
For a consumer electronics company competing in the commoditised portable fan market, design patent clusters of this kind serve a dual strategic purpose: they create a barrier to visually similar copycat products on e-commerce marketplaces, and they support takedown requests on platforms such as Amazon and AliExpress. The breadth of ten separately registered designs across incremental product variants — covering SKUs including the 3-in-1 Turbo Fan, TurboBear, and Y32 Pro — signals an intent to build overlapping protection around a core product family. For competitors and marketplace sellers, the visual scope of each patent’s claim drawings is the critical analytical variable.
Should you run an FTO against USD0999361S and Jisu’s portable fan design portfolio?
Any company manufacturing, importing, or selling portable handheld turbo fans — particularly high-RPM compact models with designs visually similar to the TurboBear, SWEETFULL, or Y32 Pro product lines — should treat this ten-patent portfolio as a live FTO priority. Design patent infringement turns on the ‘ordinary observer’ test: whether an ordinary purchaser would mistake the accused product for the patented design. The fact that this case was dismissed without prejudice means Jisu retains full enforcement rights and may refile against specifically identified sellers at any time.
PatSnap Eureka’s FTO Search Agent can retrieve the prosecution histories for all ten application numbers, identify the claim drawings that define the protected ornamental scope, surface any prior art cited during examination, and flag visually similar designs across global design patent databases. For product teams and sourcing managers working with portable fan SKUs, running this analysis before marketplace launch or import is the most cost-effective way to assess infringement exposure against a plaintiff that has demonstrated willingness to litigate.
Run a freedom-to-operate analysis on USD0999361S to assess your product’s exposure
Run FTO in Eureka →Similar design patent infringement cases in the Northern District of Illinois
Schedule A design patent enforcement cases targeting e-commerce sellers of portable consumer electronics in the Northern District of Illinois — sorted by outcome and dismissal type.
What this case signals for the consumer electronics design-patent landscape
A 15-day dismissal reveals the procedural limits of Schedule A enforcement — and what must change for it to succeed.
Northern District courts are raising the bar for Schedule A complaints
Judge Hunt’s order requiring defendant-specific naming and non-conclusory pleading reflects a documented shift in how the Northern District of Illinois handles e-commerce schedule cases. Plaintiffs must invest in pre-filing investigation to identify individual sellers and document specific infringing listings before filing — generic Schedule A complaints face increasing dismissal risk.
Jisu’s 10 design patents remain live enforcement assets despite this setback
The without-prejudice dismissal leaves all ten portable fan design patents intact and assertable. Competitors and marketplace sellers of handheld turbo fans — including products matching the TurboBear, SWEETFULL, or Y32 Pro product lines — should treat these patents as active litigation risk and conduct design clearance accordingly.
Shenzhen v Partnerships — key questions answered
The case was dismissed without prejudice on 27 August 2025 because plaintiff Jisu failed to file an amended complaint by the court-ordered deadline of 26 August 2025. The court had required Jisu to specifically name each defendant and plead infringing activity with more than conclusory statements. Non-compliance resulted in automatic dismissal under the court’s prior warning.
Dismissed without prejudice means no merits ruling was made and the underlying design patents are unaffected. All ten US design patents asserted by Jisu remain in force and fully enforceable. Jisu retains the legal right to refile the action, provided any new complaint meets the court’s pleading requirements for defendant identification and specificity of infringing conduct.
Jisu asserted ten US design patents: USD0999361S, USD1073906S, USD1068049S, USD1069084S, USD1068050S, USD0999360S, USD1068047S, USD1068048S, USD1073907S, and USD1067933S. All are design patents protecting the ornamental appearance of portable handheld turbo fan products, including SKUs marketed as the TurboBear, SWEETFULL, 3-in-1 Portable Handheld Turbo Fan, and Y32 Pro Mini Turbo Fan.
Schedule A cases allow a plaintiff to sue multiple anonymous e-commerce sellers under a single complaint, with individual identities listed in a confidential exhibit. Northern District of Illinois courts have increasingly scrutinised these filings, requiring plaintiffs to specifically identify defendants and plead particularised infringing acts rather than making blanket allegations. This case reflects that trend, with the court dismissing after Jisu failed to provide the required specificity.
No. A dismissal without prejudice carries no preclusive effect. Because the case was terminated on procedural grounds — failure to amend — rather than on the merits, the defendants cannot invoke res judicata or issue preclusion if Jisu refiles a properly pleaded complaint naming them individually. Sellers of competing handheld turbo fan products should monitor Jisu’s enforcement activity across all federal courts.
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