VEX Robotics, Inc. v. Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, Inc. v. Innovation First International, Inc. — Enforcing an agreed injunction over competition manuals did not support copyright removal

Background

VEX Robotics, Inc. and Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, Inc. are competitors in educational robotics competitions. Their business relationship lasted more than ten years, with the Foundation acting as VEX's agent in managing and promoting VEX competitions and purchasing robotics-related products. VEX terminated all licenses, rights, and authorizations granted to the Foundation in May 2026 and alleged that the Foundation misrepresented its continuing involvement in VEX events and misled competitors into registering for the Foundation's events.

VEX sued in the 354th Judicial District Court of Hunt County, Texas, on April 28, 2026, asserting Texas-law claims including breach of contract, fraud, unfair competition, trademark dilution, false designation of origin, and tortious interference, plus declaratory and injunctive relief. On May 29, 2026, the state court entered an agreed temporary injunction restricting the Foundation's use of VEX materials and requiring its competitions to rely on independently developed manuals, rules, software, and materials, while permitting its own competitions that did not copy, reproduce, substantially imitate, or intentionally replicate VEX's unique materials.

After the Foundation moved to enforce the injunction, VEX filed a countermotion accusing it of releasing imitative competition manuals and asking the state court to declare the continued use a violation and to halt publication, distribution, and use of the manuals. Four days before a scheduled September 18, 2026 hearing, the Foundation removed the case, arguing the countermotion arose under the Copyright Act or was completely preempted by it. VEX and third-party defendant Innovation First International, Inc. moved to remand and sought removal-related fees and costs.

The Court’s Holding

Judge Karen Gren Scholer first addressed removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1454(a). The court noted that the claim supporting removal must appear in an operative pleading, not a motion, but analyzed the countermotion as though it contained a claim. It rejected the theory that VEX sought a Copyright Act remedy because the requested restrictions tracked the agreed injunction: if that relief was not a copyright remedy, the countermotion was not either; if it was, the parties had already sought it when obtaining the injunction, making removal untimely.

The court also rejected the argument that resolving the countermotion required construing the Copyright Act. The relevant question was whether the Foundation violated the agreed injunction's standards, not whether its manuals crossed the Act's boundary between protectable expression and unprotectable subject matter; enforcing an agreement concerning copyrighted material does not involve rights created by the Act.

The complete-preemption theory under 17 U.S.C. § 301(a) likewise failed. Assuming without deciding that the manuals fell within copyright's subject matter, the court found no equivalence to copyright's exclusive rights because the injunction's promises contained extra elements—restrictions on using VEX materials in promoting, managing, operating, or holding competitions, with permissible conduct defined by the injunction itself. The court remanded the case to state court but denied costs and expenses under § 1447(c), finding it could not conclude the Foundation lacked an objectively reasonable basis for removal.

Key Takeaways

• A motion to enforce an agreed injunction is not a federal copyright claim merely because the disputed materials may be copyrightable.
• The close correspondence between the requested relief and the existing injunction was decisive against the Copyright Act remedy theory.
• Complete preemption failed because enforcement turned on contractual promises and competition-specific restrictions, not rights equivalent to reproduction, distribution, or display.
• The court expressly left undecided whether the competition manuals came within copyright's subject matter.
• Remand produced no fee award because improper removal alone did not show the remover lacked an objectively reasonable basis.

Why It Matters

The decision separates copyright jurisdiction from disputes over agreements that happen to concern copyrighted works, focusing preemption analysis on the actual source of the asserted duty. Restrictions embedded in an agreed injunction can supply the extra elements that defeat complete preemption even without a formal breach-of-contract claim, and the opinion preserves the line between a naked promise not to infringe and broader promises governing use of materials.

The practical consequence is procedural: the state court retains the underlying claims and the injunction-enforcement dispute, and the denial of fees shows that an unsuccessful copyright-removal theory need not be objectively unreasonable.