I Received a Trademark Infringement Notice. What Should I Do?

A trademark infringement notice is a formal claim that your brand name, product name, logo, or tagline conflicts with someone else’s registered mark. It usually arrives as a cease-and-desist letter from the rights holder’s lawyer, demanding that you stop using the mark, and often that you pay damages, hand over stock, or account for profits.

The notice itself is a pre-litigation step. It means the other side wants a resolution before going to court, and how you respond in the next few weeks largely determines whether this ends in a negotiated settlement or an injunction that freezes your sales overnight.

Here is what to do, in order.

Step 1: Do not ignore it, and do not reply on your own

Read the notice carefully and note the response deadline; most give 7 to 30 days. Then resist two instincts that cost founders dearly.

The first instinct is to ignore the notice on the assumption that it is a scare tactic. If the sender holds a valid registration and you keep selling, they can move for an interim injunction under the Trademarks Act, 1999. Courts grant these ex parte in clear cases, which means your listings can be pulled and your stock

Continued use after receiving notice also strengthens their damages claim, because it converts arguable innocent adoption into knowing infringement.

The second instinct is to fire off an emotional or apologetic reply yourself. Anything you write can be produced in court. An informal admission, even a conciliatory line like “we didn’t realise the name was taken, we’ll sort it out”, can be read as an admission of infringement and weaken every negotiating position you had.

Acknowledge receipt if a deadline is imminent, request time if needed, and say nothing about the merits until a trademark attorney has reviewed the claim.

Step 2: Verify the claim

A notice is an allegation, and allegations vary enormously in strength. Before deciding anything, your attorney should verify, and you can begin gathering the material for this yourself:

Does the sender actually hold a registration? Check the mark on the IP India public database. Confirm that the registration is live, renewed, and owned by the entity, sending the notice. Notices are sometimes sent on the strength of pending applications or lapsed registrations, which changes the legal picture entirely.

Which class is it registered in? Trademark rights operate class by class. A registration in Class 25 (clothing) does not automatically block your use in Class 42 (software services), though well-known marks get broader protection.

How similar are the marks, really? Indian courts apply the test of deceptive similarity from the perspective of an average consumer with imperfect recollection. Identical marks in the same class are a serious problem; a partial phonetic overlap in a different trade channel may be defensible.

Who used the name first? India recognises prior use. Under Section 34 of the Trademarks Act, a prior continuous user can have a defence even against a registered proprietor. Gather dated evidence of your first use: invoices, launch emails, domain registration, early marketing, and marketplace listing dates.

Is their mark vulnerable? If the sender’s mark is generic, descriptive, or has not been used for five years and three months, a rectification petition to cancel it may be available as a countermove.

This verification typically takes an attorney a few days and costs a fraction of what a wrong response does. It is the single highest-leverage step in the entire process.

Step 3: Understand your options

Once the claim is assessed, the response falls into one of four broad paths.

Comply and rebrand. If the sender’s registration is solid, the marks are close, and you have no prior use defence. A negotiated exit is usually the cheapest outcome. Your attorney negotiates the terms: a phase-out period to sell existing stock (30 to 90 days is common), withdrawal of the damages demand in exchange for a clean transition, and confidentiality. A rebrand has a real cost, new packaging, relisting on marketplaces, digital cleanup, lost search equity — which is exactly why the phase-out terms are worth negotiating hard rather than accepting the notice’s demands as written.

Negotiate coexistence or a licence. Where businesses operate in different markets, geographies, or trade channels, rights holders sometimes agree to a coexistence agreement that defines who uses what, where. In other cases, a licence fee resolves the matter. These outcomes are only available to founders who respond through counsel; they are almost never offered to someone who has already admitted fault in an unguarded reply.

Contest the claim. If you have prior use, the marks are genuinely dissimilar, the classes don’t overlap, or their registration is vulnerable to rectification, your attorney sends a substantive reply setting out the defence. Many disputes end here — a rights holder who sees a credible Section 34 defence, supported by dated invoices, often prefers settlement to litigation.

Call the bluff on an extortive notice. A minority of notices come from entities that register marks broadly and monetise them through demand letters. If the assessment shows the claim is weak and the pattern looks opportunistic, a firm reply refusing the demands, sometimes paired with a rectification petition, is the appropriate response.

A professionally drafted reply typically costs ₹15,000–₹50,000 depending on complexity. Contested trademark litigation in a commercial court runs into several lakhs per year and can drag on for years, while an interim injunction can halt revenue entirely while it does. The reply is the cheapest point in the entire dispute at which to change its direction.

Step 4: Preserve evidence and control your communications

While the response is being prepared:

Preserve everything that shows your adoption and use of the mark: design briefs, agency emails, first invoices, packaging proofs, and marketplace onboarding dates. If the dispute proceeds, these documents decide the prior-use question.

Document your good faith. If you ran a trademark search before adopting the name, keep the report. Innocent adoption affects damages even where infringement is found.

Route all communication through your attorney. No calls with the other side, no replies to follow-up emails, no comments if the dispute surfaces on social media.

Hold off on doubling down. Committing fresh money to the disputed name, a new ad campaign, or a large packaging print run, while the notice is unresolved multiplies your exposure if the outcome goes against you.

Step 5: Fix the process

Most infringement notices trace back to the same root cause: the name was adopted without a professional clearance search. Whatever the outcome of this dispute, close that gap before the next launch.

A proper clearance covers registered marks and pending applications across the relevant classes, phonetically and visually similar marks, and unregistered brands already trading under the name who could claim passing off. It applies to product names, sub-brands, and taglines as much as to the company name, because any of them can trigger a notice. Registering your own marks after clearance then gives you the standing to be the sender of such notices rather than the recipient.

How The Startup Zone can help

If you’ve been served a notice The Startup Zone can assess the strength of the claim, draft the reply, negotiate phase-out or coexistence terms, and file rectification where the sender’s mark is vulnerable. If you’re reading this before any notice has arrived, a clearance search and trademark filing across the right classes costs a small fraction of the cheapest dispute, and it is the reason most of our clients never receive one.

FAQ's

How much time do I have to respond to a trademark infringement notice?

The notice itself sets the deadline, commonly 7 to 30 days. The deadline is the sender’s demand rather than a statutory limit, and an attorney can usually secure an extension by acknowledging receipt and indicating a substantive reply is coming. Silence past the deadline is what typically triggers a court filing.

Can I keep selling while the dispute is ongoing?

Legally you can until a court order otherwise, but every sale after receiving the notice increases your damages exposure if infringement is ultimately found, and it strengthens the sender’s case for an urgent injunction. Whether to continue, pause, or phase out is a strategic call to make counsel based on the strength of the claim.

What if my company name is registered with the MCA doesn't protect me?

No. Incorporation under the Companies Act and trademark registration under the Trademarks Act are separate systems, and a Certificate of Incorporation is not a defence to infringement.

What happens if I simply ignore the notice?

The rights holder can file an infringement suit and seek an interim injunction, which courts can grant without hearing you in clear-cut cases. That can mean delisted products, frozen inventory, and a damages claim inflated by your continued use after notice. Ignoring a notice converts a negotiable dispute into an urgent one.

I was using the name before they registered it. Do I still have to stop?

Possibly not. Section 34 of the Trademarks Act protects a prior continuous user against a later registrant, provided you can prove continuous commercial use from a date before their use and registration. The defence rests entirely on dated evidence, invoices, listings, marketing records, so gather it before you reply.

Is a trademark infringement notice the same as a court summons?

No. A notice is a private pre-litigation demand from the rights holder’s lawyer. A summons comes from a court after a suit has been filed. A notice means there is still room to negotiate; a summons means the litigation clock has started, and you need counsel immediately.