RSI Video Techs., Inc. v. Vacant Property Security, LLC, No. 13 C 7260, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Mar. 10, 2014) (Holderman, Sen. J.).
Judge Holderman denied plaintiff RSI’s motion for default judgment against defendant VPS Group, Inc. in this patent case involving security systems. The other defendants, all various VPS-related entities ultimately responded to the Complaint, except for VPS Group, Inc. Defendants agreed, and the Court accepted, that VPS Group, Inc. did not answer because it was not a corporate entity. Instead, “VPS Group” was a designation for a group of related companies. To avoid confusion or “gamesmanship,” the Court ordered defendants to file a list of all of their affiliated entities to which the Complaints’ subject matter pertained with enough detail to allow RSI to decide whether any of the entities should be joined. After the disclosure, RSI had two weeks to add any defendants they deemed necessary.