What Happened
Judge Thomas J. Lo denied defendants Linda Sadeghi and Little American Businesses, Inc.’s special motion to strike the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh causes of action of the plaintiff’s Third Amended Complaint, finding none of the challenged claims arose from protected petitioning or speech under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16. The court sustained the defendants’ demurrer without leave to amend as to the four trademark-cancellation-related causes of action (1 through 4) and the Penal Code section 502 computer-access claim (count 7), but overruled the demurrer to the tortious interference, false advertising (FAL), and unfair competition (UCL) counts. A separate motion to strike the Tenth and Eleventh causes of action as exceeding the scope of leave to amend was denied.
Context
The underlying dispute concerns ownership of the “LAB” service mark, registered with the USPTO under registration numbers identified in the complaint, and arises in the wake of a divorce. The plaintiff alleges that Sadeghi and Little American Businesses refused to add him as a record owner of the LAB mark and disputed his ownership rights. The defendants argued that those refusals were petitioning activity protected by the anti-SLAPP statute.
The court rejected that framing. The Third Amended Complaint did not allege any statement before a legislative, executive, or judicial proceeding, nor any other conduct fitting the categories enumerated in section 425.16, subdivision (e). Citing Baral v. Schnitt and Park v. Nazai, the court held that allegations “merely lead[ing] to the liability-creating activity” do not arise from protected activity, and that hypothetical future USPTO filings referenced in deposition testimony were not enough to invoke the statute. The dispute, the court concluded, was a private trademark co-ownership disagreement governed by a divorce settlement agreement.
The court then sustained the demurrer to the four trademark-cancellation causes of action because the plaintiff had not pleaded an independent cause of action “involving a trademark registration” sufficient to ground jurisdiction under 15 U.S.C. section 1119. Following SmileDirectClub, LLC v. Berkely and San Diego County Credit Union v. Citizens Equity First Credit Union, the court explained that section 1119 cancellation jurisdiction requires “a claim of injury caused by the offending trademark registration” itself, not merely a dispute over which party owns the mark. The newly added FAL and UCL counts, the court held, were repackaged ownership disputes that survived demurrer on their own merits but could not anchor section 1119 jurisdiction. No further leave to amend was granted on the cancellation counts.
The Penal Code section 502 claim also fell. The court adopted Chrisman v. City of Los Angeles over the plaintiff’s reliance on United States v. Christensen, holding that section 502 contemplates “hacking” by an unauthorized intruder, not deletion of email by a credentialed joint owner of the underlying system. The tortious interference counts survived on the strength of the conversion claim tied to the email deletion; the FAL and UCL counts survived on allegations that the defendants falsely held themselves out as the exclusive owners of the LAB mark.
What’s Next
- Defendants ordered to answer the Third Amended Complaint within 21 days.
- Case management conference set for September 18, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. in Department C44.
- Remaining causes of action moving forward: conversion, tortious interference with prospective economic relations, tortious interference with contractual relations, false advertising under Business and Professions Code section 17500, and unfair competition under section 17200.
Notes
Summarizes an Orange County Superior Court minute order. The court order is the primary source; no third-party reporting was used. The underlying complaint’s factual allegations were not independently verified beyond what is recounted in the court’s order.