In analyzing specific personal jurisdiction, the Ninth Circuit considers whether: 

1. The non-resident defendant must purposefully direct his activities or consummate some transaction with the forum or resident thereof; or perform some act by which he purposefully avails himself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum, thereby invoking the benefits and protections of its laws; 
2. the claim must be one which arises out of or relates to the defendant's forum-related activities; and 
3. the exercise of jurisdiction must comport with fair play and substantial justice, i.e. it must be reasonable. 

See Schwarzenegger v. Fred Martin Motor Co., 374 F.3d 797, 802 (9th Cir. 2004); Lake v. Lake, 817 F.2d 1416, 1421 (9th Cir. 1987). 

“The plaintiff bears the burden of satisfying the first two prongs,” and if those two prongs are satisfied, then “the burden then shifts to the defendant to ‘present a compelling case' that the exercise of jurisdiction would not be reasonable.” Schwarzenegger, 374 F.3d at 802 (citing Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 476–78 (1985)).

Under the first prong, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant either purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum state or purposefully directed its activities toward the forum state. Schwarzenegger, 374 F.3d at 802.

Purposeful availment and purposeful direction are “two distinct concepts.” Schwarzenegger, 374 F.3d at 802.

“Purposeful availment generally provides a more useful frame of analysis for claims sounding in contract, while purposeful direction is often the better approach for analyzing claims in tort.” Glob. Commodities Trading Grp., Inc. v. Beneficio de Arroz Choloma, S.A., 972 F.3d 1101, 1107 (9th Cir. 2020). Both concepts, however, ultimately ask whether the defendant has “voluntarily derived some benefit from their interstate activities such that they ‘will not be haled into a jurisdiction solely as a result of random, fortuitous, or attenuated contacts.'” Id. (quoting Burger King, 471 U.S. at 474–75). “Indeed, the first prong ‘may be satisfied by purposeful availment,' ‘by purposeful direction,' or ‘by some combination thereof.'” Davis v. Cranfield Aerospace Sols., Ltd., 71 F.4th 1154, 1162 (9th Cir. 2023) (quoting Yahoo! Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme Et L'Antisemitisme, 433 F.3d 1199, 1206 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc)). 

“To determine whether a defendant ‘purposefully directed' its activities toward the forum, [courts apply] the ‘effects' test derived from” Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984).; Herbal Brands, Inc. v. Photoplaza, Inc., 72 F.4th 1085, 1091 (9th Cir. 2023) (finding the first and third elements of the Calder effects test easily established where defendants sold products to Arizona residents (intentional act), and defendants received cease-and-desist letters informing them that their actions were causing harm in Arizona (harm)). The Calder effects test “requires that the defendant (1) commit an intentional act, that is (2) expressly aimed at the forum state, and (3) which causes harm that the defendant knows will be suffered in the forum state.” Briskin v. Shopify, Inc., 135 F.4th 739, 751 (9th Cir. 2025) (en banc).

In Herbal Brands, the Ninth Circuit held that “if a defendant, in its regular course of business, sells a physical product via an interactive website and causes that product to be delivered to the forum, the defendant ‘expressly aimed' its conduct at that forum.” Id., 72 F.4th at 1093. In other words, “the sales of physical products into a forum via an interactive website can be sufficient to establish that a defendant expressly aimed its conduct at the forum, provided[:]” (1) “the sales . . . occur[ed] as part of the defendant's regular course of business instead of being random, isolated, or fortuitous[,]” and (2) “the defendant . . . exercise[ed] some level of control over the ultimate distribution of its products beyond simply placing its products into the stream of commerce.” Id. at 1094 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Briskin, 135 F.4th at 758 (“[A]n interactive platform expressly aims its wrongful conduct toward a forum state when its contacts are its own choice and not random, isolated, or fortuitous, even if that platform cultivates a nationwide audience for commercial gain.” (citation modified)).  

Next, under the second prong of the three-part jurisdiction test, the claims must “arise[] out of or relate[] to [Defendant's] forum-related activities . . . .” Schwarzenegger, 374 F.3d at 802 (citation omitted). “In other words, there must be ‘an affiliation between the forum and the underlying controversy, principally, [an] activity or an occurrence that takes place in the forum State and is therefore subject to the State's regulation.'” Bristol–Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Ct. of California, S.F. Cnty., 582 U.S. 255, 262 (2017) (quoting Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 919 (2011)).

Under the third prong of the three-part jurisdiction test, the burden then shifts to the defendant to present a compelling case that the exercise of jurisdiction would not be reasonable; which considers the following seven factors: (1) the extent of the defendant's purposeful interjection into the forum state's affairs; (2) the burden on the defendant of defending in the forum; (3) the extent of conflict with the sovereignty of the defendant's state; (4) the forum state's interest in adjudicating the dispute; (5) the most efficient judicial resolution of the controversy; (6) the importance of the forum to the plaintiff's interest in convenient and effective relief; and (7) the existence of an alternative forum. Herbal Brands, 72 F.4th at 1096 (quoting Freestream Aircraft (Bermuda) Ltd. v. Aero L. Grp., 905 F.3d 597, 607 (9th Cir. 2018)); see also Schwarzenegger, 374 F.3d at 802.

“If personal jurisdiction exists over one claim, but not others, the district court may exercise pendent personal jurisdiction over any remaining claims that arise out of the same common nucleus of operative facts as the claim for which jurisdiction exists.” Picot v. Weston, 780 F.3d 1206, 1211 (9th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Recently, in Columbia Sportswear Co. v. Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, No. 3:25-cv-01299-AB (D. Or. May 1, 2026), the District of Oregon held that there was personal jurisdiction over Columbia University, “a private institution of higher education located in New York, New York,” in Oregon for infringing the trademark of Columbia Sportswear. 

Columbia Sportswear's complaint alleged that, in October 2025, Defendant “fulfilled orders for three articles of Infringing Merchandise by shipping the articles directly from an address on the [Defendant's] campus in New York, New York to an address in Portland, Oregon.” In addition, about 0.5% of Defendant's student body is from Oregon; thus, Plaintiffs allege that “hundreds if not thousands of . . . alumni reside in Oregon, and can be expected—along with their family members and other well-wishers—to procure University-themed merchandise from [Defendant's] online store.” The district court accepted these allegations as true for purposes of deciding Columbia University's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. 

The District of Oregon found that that Columbia University sold allegedly infringing merchandise to Oregon residents and that Columbia Sportswear's claims of trademark infringement against Columbia University “clearly arise out of and relate to [the university's] conduct of selling [its infringing merchandise] to [Oregon] residents.” The alleged sales of infringing merchandise by the defendant “into Oregon occur[red] as part of Defendant's regular course of business.” Also, “even if some of the acts giving rise to Plaintiffs' claims occurred outside this forum, at least [some] acts occurred in this forum.” And the Court found that Columbia University failed to establish that the exercise of jurisdiction over them in Oregon would not be reasonable. 

Columbia University also argued for the case to be transferred to the Southern District of New York, noting, among other things, that Columbia Sportswear had “a physical presence in and around New York.” But essentially all of Columbia Sportswear's “operations, documents, and employees” were “located in and around the Portland metro area.” Because it would “merely shift rather than eliminate” the inconvenience to the parties, the court found “this factor is neutral at best.” Accordingly, the court denied the motion to transfer because “Defendant has not made a strong showing of inconvenience to upset Plaintiffs' choice of forum, and transferring this case would merely shift inconvenience to Plaintiffs.”