Rosenruist-Gestao E Servicos LDA v. Virgin Enterprises Ltd.

In a first for any federal court, my colleagues hold that a foreign company that has no United States employees, locations, or business activities must produce a designee to testify at a deposition in the Eastern District of Virginia so long as it has applied for trademark registration with a government office located there. 35 U.S.C. § 24 (2000). As a result, foreign witnesses can be compelled to travel to the United States and give in-person deposition testimony at the behest of any litigant in a trademark dispute, “for use in any contested case in the Patent and Trademark Office” (“PTO”) —…