Trademark infringement can sap your business of sales while doing damage to hard-earned brand reputation. Learn how a certification of cease and desist can help you enforce your rights and stop infringement.
What would you like to protect?
updated November 21, 2023 · 3min read
As a small business owner, news of a competitor selling its products under your trademark can be maddening—and may even put your company in jeopardy. Unfortunately, such news is depressingly common. For this kind of situation, you may consider using a certification of cease and desist.
A certification of cease and desist is typically used in conjunction with a cease and desist letter, which is used to demand that the recipient stop engaging in a particular activity, such as infringing on your business's trademark. Sending a cease and desist letter is almost always the first step in enforcing your trademark against an infringer.
A certification of cease and desist is a form to be filled out by the infringer, detailing both the infringement and steps taken to cure the infringement. The document makes for a clean way of advancing your legal position by crafting a promise in which the infringing party admits to the infringement and agrees on specific steps to take within a certain timeframe. Should the infringing party sign and return the certification and fail to abide by its language, you will have clear evidence of willful infringement, in addition to possible claims for breach of contract.
A certification of cease and desist does not always have to be included with a cease and desist letter. In complex or murky situations where the trademark violation is not clear, the party to which you send the certification will most likely ignore the request to sign. However, sending one in clear cases of infringement can rarely hurt.
To make your case as strong as possible, make sure your certification includes the following:
The exact wording of the certification can be hammered out during subsequent negotiations. Regardless of whether you use a templated form or craft your own, a certification of cease and desist can serve as a useful tool in the eternal vigilance required in properly policing your intellectual property rights.
by Tim Peterson, Esq.
An attorney with over 20 years of experience working in a variety of law firm and in-house positions, Tim Peterson sp...
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