Last week, Atlas Global Technologies LLC, a subsidiary of publicly traded Acacia Research Corporation, filed a motion to effect alternative service on Chinese defendant TP-Link in an Eastern District of Texas case brought in November 2021. After explaining prior service efforts, the plaintiff requests leave to serve “through the following alternative means: (1) service via Defendants’ U.S. subsidiary; and/or (2) service via known outside counsel for Defendants”. This motion joins a parallel request, pending since January in an Western District of Texas case in the same campaign, this one against ASUSTek, a Taiwanese defendant—as well as a growing cadre of cases, particularly in Texas, in which plaintiffs turn to alternate service on foreign defendants. The Federal Circuit has recently refused to address objections regarding this practice, at least in the context of a petition for a writ of mandamus.