Summary

Recently, Concord & Sage PC, a U.S. law firm, represented a leading Chinese smart hardware company in a cross-border intellectual property case involving copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) disputes before the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, achieving significant interim progress.

When the client approached the Concord & Sage team, the litigation window triggered by the DMCA counter-notification was already extremely tight. The Concord & Sage team immediately organized attorneys to intervene, completing fact assessment, evidence analysis, litigation strategy formulation, and drafting of the core federal complaint within approximately one business day, and timely filed the lawsuit in U.S. federal court. Thereafter, the defendant, located in Türkiye, appeared pro se and filed a Motion to Dismiss, attempting to terminate the litigation at an early stage on grounds of personal jurisdiction, forum non conveniens, and other reasons.

Facing the defendant's procedural challenges, the Concord & Sage team formulated a systematic response addressing DMCA statutory jurisdictional consent, pendent personal jurisdiction, waiver of service defense, and forum non conveniens.

On September 28, 2026, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California formally issued its ruling: Defendant's Motion to Dismiss is DENIED.

I. Approaching the Statutory Deadline, the Concord & Sage Team Intervened Urgently and Swiftly Initiated Federal Litigation

The client in this case is a Chinese smart hardware company. The client had previously provided visual materials, technical and commercial information regarding an unreleased product to a small number of individuals through a private, invitation-only product testing group, and explicitly required that such materials not be disseminated externally. One of the testers, located in Türkiye, subsequently published some of the relevant content on his YouTube channel. After the client's request for removal was unsuccessful, the client submitted a DMCA takedown notice through YouTube, and the relevant videos were removed or restricted by the platform. However, the other party then submitted a DMCA counter-notification and demanded that YouTube restore the relevant videos. At this point, the dispute had rapidly transformed from a general platform complaint into a U.S. federal litigation issue with strict statutory procedural windows. When the client contacted Concord & Sage, the relevant deadline was already very close. The Concord & Sage intellectual property litigation team immediately activated its emergency response mechanism, simultaneously assessing copyright ownership, trade secret protection measures, platform records, communications between the parties, and the basis for U.S. court jurisdiction. Within approximately one business day, the team completed the drafting and finalization of the core complaint documents and timely filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, rapidly transitioning what was originally a platform takedown dispute into U.S. federal judicial proceedings. The complaint simultaneously asserted claims for copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and knowingly material misrepresentation under DMCA § 512(f).

II. Defendant's Cross-Border Challenge to Jurisdiction: Concord & Sage Locked Onto DMCA "Statutory Jurisdictional Consent" as the Core Breakthrough

After the case was initiated, the defendant did not retain counsel but appeared as a pro se litigant and filed a Motion to Dismiss. One of his important defenses was that he was located in Türkiye and lacked sufficient contacts with California, and therefore the United States District Court for the Northern District of California had no personal jurisdiction over him.

In response to this argument, the Concord & Sage team, in its Opposition, did not engage in a traditional minimum contacts analysis, but instead directly seized upon the most critical procedural fact in this case: the defendant had previously submitted a DMCA counter-notification in order to have YouTube restore his videos. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3)(D), a foreign user submitting a valid counter-notification must expressly consent to the jurisdiction of "the federal district court for the judicial district in which the service provider may be found."

On this basis, the Concord & Sage team argued that the defendant voluntarily chose to use the DMCA counter-notification procedure to seek restoration of his videos and, in doing so, expressly consented to federal court jurisdiction. Therefore, this case did not require traditional minimum contacts as the sole basis for personal jurisdiction.

The Opposition further argued that the defendant cannot, on the one hand, voluntarily avail himself of the DMCA counter-notification regime to obtain the legal benefit of content restoration, while on the other hand denying the jurisdictional conditions directly tied to that statutory mechanism.

In the Opposition submitted to the court, the Concord & Sage team argued that since the defendant voluntarily chose to avail himself of this statutory mechanism to obtain a specific benefit, he cannot later deny the jurisdictional conditions attached thereto.

III. Foreign Defendant Files Motion to Dismiss; Concord & Sage Continues to Advance the Case

On September 28, 2026, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California formally issued its ruling.

The court first confirmed that the jurisdictional consent made by the defendant through the DMCA counter-notification was valid. The court explicitly pointed out that YouTube's requirement for foreign users submitting counter-notifications to provide such jurisdictional consent was not an unreasonable condition unilaterally imposed by the platform, but rather directly implemented the statutory procedure established by the U.S. Congress in the DMCA. Therefore, the defendant had validly consented to the exercise of personal jurisdiction by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California over the relevant copyright dispute. This finding was consistent with the core argument advanced by the Concord & Sage team in its Opposition.

At the same time, the court further recognized that because the trade secret claims and copyright claims arose from the same set of core facts, the court could exercise pendent personal jurisdiction over the related DTSA claims. Regarding forum non conveniens, the court also found that the defendant had failed to carry his burden of proof and had failed to demonstrate that Türkiye could provide an adequate alternative remedy for the plaintiff's U.S. federal law claims.

Furthermore, the court further confirmed that because the defendant did not raise any objection to service of process in his Motion to Dismiss, under Rule 12(h)(1), he had waived that defense.

Ultimately, the court expressly ruled: "The Motion to Dismiss is DENIED." This meant that the defendant's attempt to terminate the litigation at an early stage through procedural challenges was unsuccessful, and the client was able to continue pursuing copyright and trade secret enforcement in U.S. federal court.

IV. From Emergency Filing to Successfully Preserving Federal Court Proceedings

The difficulty of this case was not limited to the copyright or trade secret legal issues themselves. From the moment the client first approached Concord & Sage, the team needed to simultaneously address: the urgent DMCA statutory procedural window, a foreign defendant, U.S. federal court personal jurisdiction, trade secret claims, cross-border service of process, and forum non conveniens, among multiple procedural and substantive issues.

Within an extremely short period of time, the Concord & Sage team completed the assessment of case facts and preparation of the federal complaint, timely helping the client initiate judicial proceedings; after the defendant subsequently filed a Motion to Dismiss, the team formulated a targeted response strategy centered on the special statutory mechanism of the DMCA counter-notification, and through multi-layered procedural arguments effectively responded to the defendant's jurisdictional and forum convenience challenges. Ultimately, the court denied the Motion to Dismiss, allowing the case to continue.

This interim result reflects that the Concord & Sage team, in handling cross-border intellectual property disputes, is capable not only of addressing traditional substantive copyright and trade secret issues, but also of designing comprehensive litigation strategies around platform procedures, federal court jurisdiction, cross-border litigation procedure, and emergency relief windows.

V. Commentary from Concord & Sage LLP

This case is highly representative of cross-border intellectual property practice.

For an increasing number of Chinese technology companies engaging in overseas new product testing, KOL reviews, distributor previews, and global market预热, once unreleased product renderings, technical specifications, product roadmaps, and marketing plans are leaked in advance, disputes often do not remain at the level of simple "post deletion" or "platform complaints."

Particularly after DMCA procedures apply on U.S. platforms such as YouTube, a takedown notice does not necessarily mean the dispute is over. Once the content publisher submits a counter-notification, the company may face the choice of whether to initiate U.S. federal litigation within a very short period of time.

Therefore, for companies, on the one hand, they should establish relatively comprehensive confidentiality and evidence management mechanisms in advance, including limiting the scope of recipients, clarifying confidentiality obligations, retaining written communication records, and preserving materials establishing ownership of original works and trade secrets; on the other hand, after a cross-border intellectual property dispute arises, they should also assess as early as possible the linkage between platform procedures and federal litigation, so as to avoid affecting subsequent remedies due to missing procedural deadlines.

This case also demonstrates that, when facing foreign infringing parties, the fact that "the defendant is not in the United States" does not automatically mean that a U.S. federal court cannot exercise jurisdiction. In specific cases, platform rules, legal actions voluntarily taken by the parties, and whether they have made jurisdictional consent may all directly affect the personal jurisdiction analysis.

Commentary by Li Zhen, Director of Intellectual Property:

 The key to this case lies not only in copyright or trade secrets themselves, but more importantly in how to accurately connect DMCA platform procedures with U.S. federal litigation within an extremely short period of time. The defendant was located in Türkiye, but he had previously voluntarily submitted a counter-notification and thereby made jurisdictional consent. The Concord & Sage team built its defense precisely around this core procedural fact, and further systematically responded in combination with pendent personal jurisdiction, waiver of service defense, and forum non conveniens, ultimately successfully persuading the court to deny the Motion to Dismiss, laying the procedural foundation for the client to continue enforcing its rights in U.S. federal court.