What happens if you receive a U.S. court summons and fail to respond? Attorney Jia Runlian explains the response deadline for Shenzhen enterprises and the risk of default judgment for failing to respond.

Receiving a summons from a U.S. court has direct consequences if you fail to respond: the court will enter a default judgment, and the plaintiff’s claims for damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees will most likely be granted in full; the defendant’s funds in U.S. accounts, platform stores, and even future entry into the United States may all be affected. The typical response deadline for Shenzhen companies is 21 days after service of process, and an answer or motion must be filed within that period; otherwise, the opportunity to defend is lost procedurally.

The 21 days on the summons are not a scare tactic; they are a hard deadline.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 12(a) sets a very strict answer deadline: a defendant must respond within 21 days after receiving the complaint and summons. If the defendant waives formal service of process, or is served by email, platform notification, or similar means, the court may also allow a shorter window. In practice, many Shenzhen cross-border e-commerce sellers encountering a U.S. court summons for the first time often mistake it for a platform complaint or a lawyer’s letter, leave it unaddressed, and by the time they discover their accounts have been frozen, the 21 days have long passed. Once the deadline is missed, the plaintiff can directly ask the court for a default judgment, and the judge usually only reviews the materials submitted by the plaintiff, with the defendant having no further opportunity to explain.

Once a default judgment is entered, the amount awarded is often far greater than a settlement.

Under Rule 55 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, after a plaintiff applies for default judgment, the court may order the defendant to pay statutory damages, infringing profits, treble punitive damages, and attorney’s fees. In trademark infringement, for example, 15 U.S.C. §1117(c) provides that the statutory damages cap for willful infringement may reach up to US$2 million per type of goods. In patent cases, 35 U.S.C. §284 allows the court to award a reasonable royalty plus an enhancement of up to three times that amount. We generally advise clients not to apply domestic litigation experience to U.S. procedure; the amount of a default judgment is often several times, or even more than ten times, the settlement amount, and the judgment can be enforced within the United States and may also be recognized in some countries through relevant mechanisms under the Hague Judgments Convention.

The freezing order and preliminary injunction will take effect together with the default judgment.

In many cases, when filing suit, the plaintiff simultaneously applies for a temporary restraining order (TRO). Once the court approves it, platforms such as PayPal, Amazon, and AliExpress will directly freeze the defendant’s accounts. A TRO typically remains in effect for 14 days and may be extended once to 28 days. If the defendant fails to respond to the lawsuit, the TRO converts into a preliminary injunction, the funds in the accounts continue to be held, and the store links are taken down. After a default judgment takes effect, the plaintiff can also seek a permanent injunction prohibiting the defendant from selling similar products in the United States. In practice, we have seen sellers who, because they failed to respond in a single case, subsequently had all their U.S. platform accounts linked and banned, suffering losses far exceeding the amount at issue in the case itself.

What should a Shenzhen enterprise do first after receiving a summons?

First confirm the method of service and the starting point for the deadline. If service was by email, verify whether the court approved alternative service; if it was forwarded by the platform, check whether the platform notice included a complete complaint. Within the next 3 to 5 days, it is advisable to contact an attorney licensed to practice in the United States to evaluate the case. Our team has handled a large number of similar proceedings in U.S. and EU intellectual property legal services, and we generally first do three things: identify who the plaintiff is, check whether the rights at issue are valid, and check whether the defendant is a proper party. Many plaintiffs are patent assertion entities or mass-enforcement law firms retained by brand owners; there is room for settlement in the case itself, but the premise is that you must first appear in the proceedings.

Can it be resolved with a settlement letter without appearing in court?

You can negotiate, but negotiation cannot replace responding to the lawsuit. Plaintiff’s counsel is usually willing to discuss settlement during the response deadline because the opposing side also does not want to spend time going through the full proceedings. During negotiations, however, the deadline to respond is not automatically extended unless the parties sign a written extension agreement or the court approves an extension. We generally advise clients to complete communications on the settlement framework at least 7 days before the deadline expires. If no agreement can be reached, file an answer first to preserve procedural rights, and then continue negotiating. Many clients encountering this for the first time ask: Can we just ignore it for now and wait until judgment is entered before negotiating? The answer is that after a default judgment, bargaining leverage drops significantly; the plaintiff may seek enforcement directly, and by the time you then try to settle, the cost will be considerably higher.

Postponing the defense is possible, but it costs money and requires a reason.

Under 37 C.F.R. §2.62 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b), a defendant may seek an extension of the deadline to answer. Common grounds include: having just been served and needing time to retain counsel, the case being complex and requiring more time to prepare, and the parties being engaged in settlement negotiations. Courts usually grant a first extension, for example, from 21 days to 45 days, but a second extension requires stronger grounds, and the plaintiff may seek to have the defendant bear the costs incurred by the extension. In practice, we generally advise clients not to seek an extension merely for delay; an extension itself does not resolve the substantive issues but only pushes the time window back. If the case clearly has settlement potential, negotiations should be pursued concurrently during the extension period.

The chain reaction of failing to respond to a lawsuit extends beyond a single case.

A default judgment will remain in the public record. It can be found through PACER, the U.S. courts' electronic case filing system, and platforms also refer to it when assessing seller risk. If the same plaintiff files bulk lawsuits in multiple courts, once a default judgment is entered in one case, the plaintiff will cite it directly in the other cases and demand the same damages standard. More troublesome still, if the defendant has assets in the United States or plans to raise financing or go public in the future, these judgments will be dug up during due diligence. We have handled a client that, while building an overseas intellectual property portfolio, discovered an old U.S. default judgment that had not been dealt with, which led to a trademark application being rejected based on a cited mark. So when you receive a summons, even if you think the plaintiff has no case, you must respond first and then raise your defenses through the procedural process.

After responding to a lawsuit, what are the common defense paths?

Procedurally, one can challenge the validity of service, jurisdiction, or the plaintiff's standing. Substantively, one can assert non-infringement, invalidity of the right, prior use, laches, and other defenses. In a trademark case, for example, if the defendant can prove that it had already used the same or a similar mark in the United States before the plaintiff's registration, it can assert common law prior use rights. In a patent case, one can file an IPR (inter partes review) or PGR (post-grant review) to challenge the validity of the claims, but it is important to note that these proceedings have 9-month or 12-month time windows. We generally advise clients to assess whether to initiate administrative proceedings while responding to the lawsuit; pursuing both tracks in parallel can sometimes yield negotiating leverage more quickly. Where rights conflicts involving the EU or other countries are concerned, one may refer to the procedural explanations in intellectual property legal services for other countries.

Practical Advice from Lawyer Jia Runlian

For Shenzhen companies doing cross-border business, receiving a summons from a U.S. court is not a low-probability event. The core point comes down to one sentence: you must take action within 21 days. Whether you retain your own lawyer or work through a team like ours, first file an answer or move for an extension to preserve your procedural rights. The cost of a default judgment is often an order of magnitude higher than the cost of defending the case. If the case involves multiple rights such as trademarks, patents, and copyrights, or the plaintiff is simultaneously filing complaints on multiple platforms, it is advisable to conduct an overall assessment rather than handling each case separately. Our team is composed ofLawyer Jia RunlianLead: relevant practice background is available on the lawyer profile page, and matching can be done by case type.

Attorney Jia Runlian, of the foreign-related intellectual property team at Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm, focuses on trademark, patent, and copyright matters in the United States and the European Union. If you need to assess the deadline to respond to a U.S. court summons or the risk of a default judgment, you may call the hotline at 4008-363-555 for consultation.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice for any specific case. Court procedural rules and substantive law vary among U.S. states. If you receive a summons, you must consult an attorney licensed to practice in the United States within the statutory time limit; failure to do so may result in adverse consequences such as a default judgment.