[tonywebster]

That's not true. On June 19, Microsoft filed the Complaint, Motion to Seal, and Ex Parte TRO Application all at the same time.

The TRO actually says: “...good cause and the interest of justice require that this Order be Granted without prior notice to Defendants, and accordingly, Microsoft is relieved of the duty to provide Defendants with prior notice of Microsoft’s motion.”

It says that because Microsoft wanted it to say that; Microsoft used that language in their proposed TRO for the judge to sign, and the judge apparently agreed.

The Summons has nothing to do with this. The court issued the Summons, but the court doesn't do anything with it. It's the plaintiff's obligation to serve a summons on a defendant, and they have 120 days to do so before the Court would require the plaintiff dismiss the case without prejudice. The plaintiff could serve them the same day, or they could take their time. Corporations with registered agents are much easier to serve than an individual that dodges a process server.

There's often a good chance a defendant will receive a solicitation from an attorney (who searches court records for new cases) to represent them before they actually get served with the summons and complaint. However, nothing would come up in court records in this case because the entire docket is sealed.

There's no way Vitalwerks/No-IP would have known about this, and it sounds like they weren't served until today, after Microsoft's action.

I think it's pretty clear that Microsoft wanted to ensure that nobody, including No-IP, knew about the case until they were able to strike.