How Badass Entrepreneurs Deal With Cease and Desists

A friend recently received a cease and desist letter from a company (let’s call them SillyCo) that felt his product infringed SillyCo’s trademark. Instead of calling his lawyer or freaking out, he went over to SillyCo’s headquarters. He walked into the building (security fail on SillyCo’s part), went into the CEO’s office, and said “Your company is threatening to sue mine. We should talk about why this is a stupid idea.” The CEO was caught off guard and my friend seized the opportunity.

My friend explained why he was not infringing SillyCo’s trademark and said, “Clearly this happened without your knowledge because the person that did this is an idiot and doesn’t understand trademarks or copyrights.” The CEO, who had full knowledge of the c&d, was able to save face and said “You know, sometimes when you’re scaling a company, people take actions that you wouldn’t have taken yourself. I’ll look into it for you.”

Two days later, SillyCo’s lawyers sent an email to my friend: “We consider this matter resolved.”

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