Casetify Lawsuit: dbrand’s Copyright Claims and Case Status

The Casetify lawsuit is a copyright infringement case filed in March 2024 by Canadian accessories company dbrand Inc., which alleges that Casetify copied 117 of its “Teardown” phone case designs. The suit is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois as case number 1:24-cv-01919, and as of mid-2026 it remains active with no trial date set and no settlement announced.¹

What dbrand Says Casetify Copied

Dbrand’s Teardown line, launched in 2019 with YouTuber Zack Nelson of the JerryRigEverything channel, sells skins and cases that make a phone look transparent. Each design starts with dbrand physically dismantling a device and scanning its internals, then editing the imagery to match the exterior dimensions of that model. Dbrand describes each skin as a “99% accurate representation” of the device’s internals.²

According to the complaint, Casetify used dbrand’s original scans to build a competing product line first sold as “Inside Parts” and later rebranded “Inside Out.” Dbrand says Casetify rearranged some components to disguise the source but failed to remove hidden markers dbrand had baked into its artwork.³ Those markers, known as Easter eggs, do not exist on real device hardware, which is what makes them useful as fingerprints. The ones dbrand pointed to include:

“RO807,” a code printed on a metal strip inside an iPhone case design, tied to one of dbrand’s product lines.⁴
“Glass is glass and glass breaks,” a phrase Nelson coined during his durability tests, appearing on a tab inside a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra case design.⁴
“SUB-SCRIBE” paired with the number 11, a nod to dbrand’s founding date of November 11, 2011.⁴

Dbrand also flagged what it called a careless mistake: Casetify’s teardown case for the Samsung Galaxy S23 allegedly used imagery scanned from an iPhone XR, so the internal layout did not even match the device the case fit. In some products, dbrand said, its own logo was still visible.³⁴

After Nelson published a video laying out the allegations in November 2023, Casetify said it was investigating and pulled the Inside Out collection from its website. Dbrand called that response incomplete, saying the disputed products were still available through third-party retailers such as Best Buy.³

The Lawsuit and Damages Sought

Dbrand filed its copyright complaint on March 6, 2024, before Judge Martha M. Pacold. The defendants are Casetagram Limited, the Hong Kong company that operates Casetify, and Westside Lab, Inc., a U.S. co-defendant that shares counsel with Casetagram. Dbrand says it holds registered copyrights for all 117 Teardown designs at issue and that those registrations predate Casetify’s Inside Out launch.⁵¹

Reporting has described the suit as seeking eight-figure damages, though the specific number in the complaint has not been made public.⁶ Because Casetagram is a Hong Kong corporation, dbrand had to ask the court for permission to serve it by email rather than through the usual international channels; the court granted that request on March 18, 2024, authorizing service at seven email addresses.¹

How Casetify Has Fought Back

Casetify’s defense in court has run through several procedural attempts to end the case early, none of which have landed. On May 1, 2024, the defendants filed an answer and a counterclaim, which included a jury demand. Three weeks later they filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, but the court struck it because under federal rules a motion to dismiss has to come before, not after, a responsive pleading.¹

Casetify then filed a motion for summary judgment together with a request to stay discovery. The court denied both on June 20, 2024. On June 25, 2024, Casetify tried a third route with a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings and another request to pause discovery. Briefing extended through the end of July 2024, and no ruling on that motion appears in the available docket records.¹ The substance of the counterclaim itself has not been made public in the docket text.

Where the Case Stands

By June 2026 the docket has grown past 270 entries, reflecting motions to seal, motions to compel, extension requests, and repeated discovery disputes. Several motions for sanctions were filed and ruled on in early 2026, though public docket entries do not spell out what the sanctions were based on.⁷

In August 2025 the defendants filed a sealed motion for leave to add supplemental affirmative defenses, new counterclaims, and third-party claims. That motion was still under advisement at a November 2025 status hearing. The court has set June 30, 2026, as the deadline for any further amendments to pleadings or joinder of additional parties. No trial date has been scheduled, and no settlement or consent decree has been entered.⁸⁷

Zack Nelson’s Stake in the Outcome

Nelson, whose JerryRigEverything channel produced the durability tests and phrases baked into the Teardown designs, has said that if he wins monetary damages he plans to donate the funds to Not A Wheelchair, his company that produces and distributes wheelchairs at no cost to recipients.⁹

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CourtListener. Dbrand Inc. v. Casetagram Limited
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dbrand. Teardown Collection
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Android Central. Dbrand and JerryRigEverything Sue Casetify
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PCMag. YouTuber Accuses Casetify of Copyright Theft and He Can Prove It
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Yahoo Tech. Dbrand JRE Dragging Casetify Court
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Hypebeast. JerryRigEverything Dbrand Multi-Million Casetify Lawsuit
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PlainSite. Dbrand Inc. v. Casetagram Limited d/b/a Casetify
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CourtListener. Dbrand Inc. v. Casetagram Limited – Page 2
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Tubefilter. JerryRigEverything Dbrand Casetify Lawsuit