NS, Inc. v. The Partnerships, No. 25 CV 00596, (N.D. Ill. Sept. 2, 2025) (Coleman, J.).

Judge Coleman, in this Schedule A case, granted in part and denied in part plaintiff NewAge Supply’s motion for default judgment against five defaulting defendants accused of selling counterfeit products bearing plaintiff’s PROFITNESS trademarks. While finding defendants liable for trademark infringement, the Court significantly reduced the requested statutory damages from $100,000 to $1,000 per defendant.

The Court emphasized that statutory damages must bear relation to actual damages. The Court found plaintiff’s requested relief “entirely, and unnecessarily, overbroad” because plaintiff failed to provide any meaningful description of the circumstances of infringement. Specifically, plaintiff provided no information about the duration of defendants’ infringing activity, defendants’ profits, sales volume, plaintiff’s lost revenue, or the value and reputation of plaintiff’s trademarks.

The Court also terminated the asset freeze on defendants’ financial accounts, finding that without information about what percentage of assets derived from infringing sales, the freeze posed too great a risk of unfairly burdening defendants who may also sell non-infringing products. The Court entered default judgment with a permanent injunction against trademark infringement and awarded $1,000 per defendant, which may be transferred from defendants’ financial accounts.

This decision reinforces that plaintiffs in Schedule A cases must provide concrete evidence of harm to support substantial statutory damage awards, even in default judgment proceedings.