Understanding the Digital Signature Lawfulness for Cease and Desist Letter in Canada

How to eSign a document: digital signature lawfulness for Cease and Desist Letter in Canada

Hey everybody, Robert Wright here, private label law attorney, and today I want to talk about responding to a cease and desist letter. If you are selling on the Amazon for any period of time, at some point, you’re going to get what’s called a cease and desist letter. This is basically a communication letter that demands something of you. Generally speaking, it’s that you cease doing something and desist from doing it ever again. It comes up all the time with patents, and trademarks, and copyrights, someone is saying that you’re selling a product that you don’t have the rights to be selling, you’re using a brand name that's confusingly similar to their brand name, or you’ve stolen someone’s copyrighted material. These letters come in all form of fashion. When you get them, remember, they’re not a legal opinion; it is literally, it’s just a letter from someone. And so, the next step of the analysis is, well, who is the letter from? Is it from the rights holder, the brand itself? Or is it from an attorney? That tells me one or two things right out of the game. If it’s from a law firm, that means that somebody has at least invested some degree of money in getting that law firm to draft a letter and send it. That means, they’re kind of serious, and you should take the letter a little more seriously than someone who just pulled a cease and desist letter off the Internet, opied and pasted some material into it, and blasted it out to you. So, number one, understand it’s not a legal opinion; it’s just a letter. It could be an informed, legal opinion, an informed lawyerly opinion, the person who wrote the letter, but that’s not a judge, that’s not a court. So, take it seriously, or more seriously than you would someone who just, some brand owner who sent you a letter. Alright, secondly, try to understand what it means. What’s the issue behind the letter? Is it a trademark issue? Is it a copyright issue? Is it a counterfeit issue? Is it a patent issue? What’s the issue? What’s the underlying root cause? And I’ll be honest with you, in some letters, those that are written by attorneys, generally speaking, they’re very clear, it’s very precise, Other letters, if someone’s just kind of taken one, copied and pasted off the Internet and send it over to you in hopes that it would scare you, it’s really difficult to understand what’s going on. But, the first step is to kind of, who is this from and how serious of the thing is that. Secondly, what are they talking about? What am I being accused of? And then, thirdly, you don’t have to respond. You are under no legal obligation to respond. Now, if they’re asking, “Hey, how many have you sold?” “What’s your supplier?”, and this and that, and all sorts of information, I don’t know that I would just offer that up right away, and if you’ve gotten a serious cease and desist letter, something’s that really going to keep you up at night, speak with a professional. There are bright line rules around these sorts of letters. There are really nuanced; they’re very particular. And you need someone who’s informed and trained in intellectual property, if it’s an IP sort of issue, to really kind of understand what the issue is, what the root cause is, what are your possible options might be, do you need to respond, do you not need to respond. My guidance is, is I guess two-fold. One, don’t overreact, but two, don’t underreact. Don’t freak out if you get a letter. It’s part of doing business, it’s the cost effect of way of policing your brand. And in fact, if you’re doing any sort of safeguarding your sales, you want to make sure that you’re sending out cease and desist letters when you see infringement. But, secondly, don’t overreact. Cease and desist letters are, I won’t say they’re a dime a dozen because you do need to take it seriously, but understanding it for what it is, and sometimes, you can do that on your own; sometimes, it involves a professional. But, react in a way that’s appropriate for the letter.