A trademark cease and desist letter can’t force you to do anything: it is a private demand, not a court order, and nobody can hold you in contempt for ignoring it. What you do in the next few weeks still shapes how the dispute ends, because the letter proves you knew about the claim from the day it arrived, and if the sender sues, a court can weigh everything you did after that date.
What a Trademark Cease and Desist Letter Is
A trademark cease and desist letter comes from a brand owner, usually through its lawyer, and tells you to stop using a name or logo it says is too close to its own. Only a court can order you to stop: under the Lanham Act, federal courts can grant injunctions in trademark cases, and a brand owner has to file a lawsuit and win one. The letter comes before any lawsuit and says what the sender owns, what it thinks you are doing wrong, and what it wants you to do.
Most letters ask you to stop using the mark by a set date, destroy or sell off inventory, change your domain or social media handles, and abandon any trademark application you have filed. Some also ask for money or an accounting of your sales.
Some senders have a registered mark and a clear case. Others send the same aggressive letter to every business with a similar name.
What to Do When You Receive One
- Note the deadline in the letter and the date you received it.
- Don’t reply right away, and don’t call the sender to argue. Anything you say or write can end up as evidence.
- Save everything: the letter, the envelope or email, and records of when you started using your name and where you sell.
- Don’t delete web pages, posts, or product listings to hide past use. They are evidence if the dispute reaches court, and deleting them after you know about the claim looks like a cover-up.
- Look up the sender’s mark in the USPTO’s Trademark Search system and its status and file history in TSDR (Trademark Status and Document Retrieval).
- Talk to a trademark attorney before the deadline.
The sender picks the deadline in the letter, and no law sets it. Use the time to learn how strong the claim is before anyone replies.
How to Judge Whether the Claim Is Strong
The core question in most letters is likelihood of confusion: whether buyers are likely to think your goods or services come from the sender or are connected to it. The guide to trademark infringement and how courts decide it explains the factors in detail. For a first read of the letter, check these points:
| Question | Points toward a strong claim | Points toward a weak claim |
|---|---|---|
| Does the sender have a federal registration? | Registered on the Principal Register for the goods at issue | No registration, or a registration for unrelated goods |
| Who used the mark first? | The sender used it before you started | You started first in your area or market |
| How similar are the marks? | Same or nearly the same in sound, look, or meaning | Shared words that are common in your industry |
| How related are the goods or services? | You sell the same kind of product to the same buyers | Different products, buyers, and sales channels |
| How strong is the sender’s mark? | A made-up or unusual word | A descriptive or common term that many businesses use |
| Is there evidence of actual confusion? | Customers have mixed you up | No known confusion after years of side-by-side use |
TSDR shows the sender’s registration date, the goods and services it covers, and whether the registration is live. If the letter cites a registration that TSDR shows as cancelled, or one that covers unrelated goods, your attorney can point that out in the reply.
Under 15 U.S.C. § 1111, a registered owner who doesn’t mark its goods with ® or a similar notice can’t recover profits or damages unless the defendant had actual notice of the registration. A cease and desist letter that cites the registration gives you that notice.
Your Response Options
The right option depends on the strength of the claim, what the name is worth to your business, and what the sender wants.
| Option | When it fits | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Comply and rebrand | The claim is strong, or your name is new and cheap to change | You lose the name, but the dispute usually ends |
| Negotiate | The claim has some merit, but a full rebrand would hurt | Common deals include a phase-out period, a limited field of use, or a coexistence agreement |
| Reply and dispute the claim | You used the name first, or the marks and goods are far apart | The sender may drop the matter or may sue |
| Challenge the sender’s registration | The registration is vulnerable, for example for nonuse | A cancellation proceeding at the USPTO costs time and legal fees |
| File for a declaratory judgment | You want a court to decide before you invest more in the name | You start the lawsuit and pay for it |
A coexistence agreement is a contract in which both businesses keep using their marks under set limits, such as different product lines or regions. A declaratory judgment is a court ruling on the parties’ rights, available under 28 U.S.C. § 2201 when there is a real dispute.
Before you pick an option, a trademark attorney can tell you how strong the claim looks and what each path is likely to cost. The overview of what a trademark attorney does covers disputes and negotiation along with filings.
Do You Have to Respond to a Cease and Desist Letter?
No law requires you to answer a trademark cease and desist letter. A lawsuit is different: if you are served with a federal complaint, you generally have 21 days to answer, and if you don’t, the clerk must enter a default against you under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
If you ignore the letter, the sender has no reason to wait, and a lawsuit is often the next step. If you lose that lawsuit, the letter comes back: it puts you on notice, and continued use after notice is evidence a court can use to find that you infringed on purpose.
How Ignoring the Letter Can Affect a Willfulness Finding
The Supreme Court held in Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc. (2020) that a trademark owner doesn’t have to prove willful infringement to recover the defendant’s profits, but that the defendant’s mental state is “a highly important consideration” in deciding whether to award them. Section 1117 of the Lanham Act also lets a court raise damages up to three times the actual amount and award attorney fees in exceptional cases. In counterfeiting cases, willful use raises the maximum statutory damages from $200,000 to $2,000,000 per counterfeit mark per type of goods or services.
In Curry v. Revolution Laboratories, LLC (7th Cir. 2024), the defendants received three cease and desist messages about the “Diesel Test” supplement name, and an internal email said, “I personally vote we let him sue us to get through the remainder of our labels.” The jury awarded more than $500,000 of the defendants’ profits plus $300,000 in punitive damages against each of the three defendants under Illinois common law, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.
If you decide to keep using your name, build the opposite record: a reply, advice from a trademark attorney, and a good-faith reason to believe your use doesn’t infringe.
Sending a Trademark Cease and Desist Letter
If someone is using a name close to yours, a letter is usually the cheapest first step. Before you send one, confirm three things: you have rights in the mark (a registration or proof of earlier use), the other use is likely to cause confusion, and you are ready to follow through if the other side refuses. A letter you don’t back up tells the other business it can ignore you.
You can write and send a letter yourself by email or certified mail. A letter from a trademark attorney usually gets more attention and is less likely to overstate your rights or make a threat you can’t carry out. An overreaching letter can invite a declaratory judgment suit filed in the other side’s home court, or bad publicity if the recipient posts it online.
Attorneys often bill letters and the negotiation that follows by the hour. The guide to trademark attorney cost explains flat fees and hourly billing, and the guide on how to choose a trademark attorney lists questions to ask before you hire, including whether the attorney handles disputes or only filings.
What a Trademark Cease and Desist Letter Should Include
If you start from a trademark cease and desist letter template, replace every general statement with your own facts. A letter that works usually includes:
- Your name, your business, and how to reach you or your attorney
- The mark you own, with the registration number if you have one and the date you started using it
- The goods or services the mark covers
- The other party’s use: the name, where you saw it, and screenshots or dates
- Why that use is likely to cause confusion, in a few sentences
- What you want: stopping use by a date, a phase-out, a change of domain, or abandonment of a pending application
- A reasonable deadline to respond
Leave out threats you won’t carry out, claims to rights you don’t have, and demands for money you can’t support. Keep the tone firm and factual, since the recipient may show the letter to a judge.
If you are on either side of a dispute and want a lawyer to review the letter, you can find a trademark attorney who handles disputes in the directory.