How-To · Trademark Enforcement · Last verified October 2026

How to Send a Cease and Desist Notice for a Trademark (2026)

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

A cease and desist notice is usually the first shot in a trademark fight, and often the last, because a well-drafted notice settles many disputes without a suit. It tells the infringer who you are, what right you hold, what they are doing wrong, and what you want them to do by when. Sent well, it stops the infringement and preserves the relationship where one exists; sent badly, it can warn the infringer, expose you to a groundless-threats claim, or weaken your later case. This guide explains what a trademark cease and desist notice should contain, the common mistakes, and how it fits before a suit. It is general information, not legal advice, and a real notice should be settled with counsel. Last verified October 2026.

01What the notice is for

A cease and desist notice is a formal written demand that the recipient stop conduct that infringes your trademark. It is not a court filing and there is no statutory form for it; it is a private legal notice. Its job is threefold:

• Stop the infringement quickly and cheaply, without litigation.
• Create a record that you asserted your right and the infringer was put on notice, which matters later for damages and for showing the infringer was not innocent.
• Open a negotiation, for example to agree an undertaking, a transition period, or a settlement.

Because the notice is often enough on its own, it is worth drafting carefully rather than firing off a template.

02Check your position first

Before you send anything, confirm you actually hold the right you are about to assert. A notice built on a weak footing invites a counter-attack. Check:

• Your registration. Is the mark registered, in which classes, and is it live and renewed? A registered mark gives you a Section 29 infringement claim; an unregistered mark leaves you with passing off under Section 27, which is harder.
• The scope. Does your registration actually cover the goods or services the other side is selling, or a similar class likely to cause confusion?
• The other side's rights. Do they have an earlier registration, prior use, or an honest concurrent use that could defeat you? Searching the register and their history first avoids an embarrassing climb-down.

This check is also what protects you from the groundless-threats problem below: a threat you can justify is safe, a threat you cannot is a liability.

03What the notice should contain

A strong cease and desist notice is specific, not vague. It should set out:

• Who you are and your right. The proprietor, the registered mark, its number, class and registration date, or the goodwill you rely on if the claim is passing off.
• The infringing conduct. Exactly what the recipient is doing, with dates and evidence such as listings, packaging or invoices, and why it infringes under Section 29 or amounts to passing off under Section 27.
• The harm. The confusion or deception caused and the damage to your brand.
• The demands. The specific actions required, set out clearly (see below).
• A deadline and a statement of what you will do if it is not met, kept measured to avoid an unjustifiable threat.

04What to demand

Tailor the demands to the infringement and to what you actually want. Common demands include:

• Stop using the infringing mark on all goods, packaging, signage, advertising and online listings.
• A written undertaking not to use the mark or anything deceptively similar in future.
• Delivery up or destruction of infringing stock, labels and packaging.
• Withdrawal of listings from marketplaces and websites, and transfer or cancellation of any confusingly similar domain or social-media handle.
• An account of sales and, where appropriate, damages or a contribution to your costs.

Be proportionate. Overreaching demands, such as damages far beyond any real loss, make settlement harder and can look like the kind of unjustified threat the law discourages.

A cease and desist notice works best when it is specific about the right, the infringement and the demands, and measured about the consequences.

05The groundless-threats trap

Here is the mistake that turns an enforcement step into a liability. Section 142 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 makes an unjustified threat of infringement proceedings actionable. If you threaten someone with a trademark suit and cannot in fact make out infringement, the person threatened can sue you for a declaration that the threats are unjustified, for an injunction against continuing the threats, and for damages.

This is why the earlier checks matter. A notice sent by a proprietor who genuinely holds the right and faces real infringement is protected, because the threat is justified. A notice fired at a party who turns out to have the better right, or over conduct that is not infringement, exposes the sender. The safe course is to confirm your right and the infringement before you threaten, and to keep the notice factual and measured rather than aggressive.

06If the notice is ignored

If the recipient does not comply by the deadline, the notice has done its second job: it has put them on notice, which undercuts any later claim that they infringed innocently. The next step is usually a trademark infringement suit before a Commercial Court or the commercial division of a High Court, seeking an injunction and the other reliefs under Section 135, with an urgent interim injunction to stop the ongoing use.

For how that stage works, see how to file a trademark infringement suit. If the infringement involves marketplace listings, there are platform routes to pursue in parallel, covered in dealing with brand impersonation on Amazon. One honest caveat: sending the notice warns the infringer, who may rush to file their own proceedings or move evidence, so where speed and surprise matter, some brand owners go straight to court for an ex parte interim injunction instead.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

Drafting and sending a cease and desist notice is a legal task, and Claw does not write the notice for you. Where Claw helps is before and after. Before you send, you can check whether the recipient already has litigation or a pattern of IP disputes on record, which tells you how they are likely to respond. After, if the notice fails and the matter becomes a suit, Claw tracks the resulting proceedings across High Courts and Commercial Courts, part of 9,102 courts, benches and forums, with alerts and monitoring so a new order or hearing date does not slip past a brand owner or in-house team. Its Legal GPT researches across 30 crore+ judgments, with Supreme Court decisions from 1950 and High Court decisions from 1990, so counsel can see how courts have treated similar infringement and groundless-threats questions. Results return in under 5 seconds, and Claw does not train its AI models on your documents. To check a recipient before you send, run a case search across Indian courts by party name. A clean result means nothing was found on the forums and date searched, not that nothing exists, and namesakes should be confirmed before you rely on a match. This is general information, not legal advice.

08Sources and further reading

• India Code (Trade Marks Act, 1999, Sections 27, 29, 135, 142): indiacode.nic.in
• Office of the CGPDTM (trademark registry and status): ipindia.gov.in
• IP India online services (register search): ipindiaonline.gov.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This guide is general information, not legal advice. A cease and desist notice can create legal exposure if the threat is unjustified; confirm your right and the infringement, and settle the notice with an IP lawyer before sending.

09Frequently asked questions