The largest filer of trademarks in the United States is Raj Abhyanker PC. It is my understanding that Raj Abhyanker is the principal behind Trademarkia, the search database. I’m not quite clear as to the relationship between Trademarkia, and his law firm, which appears to do business under the name LEGAL FORCE. The two entities seem to co-market under the Twitter handle LF FORCE.

Mr. Abhyanker is involved in two lawsuits in the ND Cal with the company, Nextdoor Inc. Nextdoor accuses Mr. Abhankyer of various torts including cybersquatting, and Abhankyer accuses Nextdoor and co-defendants of, inter alia, theft of trade secret, in 3:12-cv-056670EMC. A summary judgement decision below summarizes some of the story. Mr. Abhankyer accuses Nextdoor of patent infringement in Fatdoor v Nextdoor, 5:2014cv02335.

Law360 now reports that Abhankyer’s attorneys (who were associated with Legal Force) moved to withdraw. The hearing was in camera, but the article notes that Nextdoor has alleged that Abhankyer has proffered fabricated evidence with regard to his alleged priority in the NEXTDOOR trademark. Its allegations are in the second document embedded below, page ten of its ‘opposition to motion.’ Mr. Abhankyer’s responses, characterized in the Law360 article, are contained in docket numbers 251 and 255 on Pacer.

The attorneys’ motion to withdraw was granted (which is not a reflection on the veracity of any allegations they may have made, other than that they can no longer function effectively as Mr. Abhankyer’s representatives.

This is a complex case, with 277 documents in the record less than two years in. We recommend looking at the original court documents before coming to any conclusions.

UPDATE APRIL 6 2015: The principal of Fatdoor, Raj Abhankyer, emailed me to report that this matter was settled pre-trial.

nextdoor v raj abhyanker sj.pdf

var docstoc_docid=’171893569′; var docstoc_title=’nextdoor v raj abhyanker sj.pdf’; var docstoc_urltitle=’nextdoor v raj abhyanker sj.pdf’;

nextdoor re raj atty motion to withdraw.pdf

var docstoc_docid=’171893577′; var docstoc_title=’nextdoor re raj atty motion to withdraw.pdf’; var docstoc_urltitle=’nextdoor re raj atty motion to withdraw.pdf’;