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49 U.S.F. L. Rev. 411 (2015)
Policing the Cease-and-Desist Letter

handle is hein.journals/usflr49 and id is 429 raw text is: Articles Policing the Cease-and-Desist Letter By LEAH CHAN GRINVALD* Introduction THE U.S. REPUTATION for litigiousness is so pervasive that it has entered our cultural fabric: books and articles have been written about it and a variety of popular media have satirized our infamy.' There is a paradox, though. Statistics show that approximately only three percent of all legal disputes are brought to the judicial system.2 Of this three percent, only a small fraction of disputes are litigated to a final decision.3 How can Americans still be so litigious while simulta- * © 2015 Leah Chan Grinvald. Associate Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School. B.A., The George Washington University; J.D., NYU School of Law. For their helpful comments and conversations regarding this Article, the Author would like to thank Gaia Bernstein, Christian Czychowski, Stacey Dogan, Pamela Edwards, Yan Fang, William Gallagher, Jeffrey M. Gitchel, Paul Gugliuzza, Michael Meurer, Andrew Perlman, Lisa P. Ramsey, Sandra L. Rierson, Jessica Silbey, and Alan White. The Author would also like to thank all the participants at the various presentations of this Article: INTA's 2015 Academic Day Scholarship Symposium, Boston University School of Law's IP Law Speakers' Series, the 14th Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, the CUNY Law Faculty Workshop, and the 2013 New EnglandJunior Scholars' Workshop. Finally, the Author would like to thank Dahlia Ali and Jordan Marciello for their excellent research assistance, Suffolk University School of Law for their financial support, and the editors of the University of San Francisco Law Review. Feedback is most welcome: Lgrinvald@suffolk.edu. 1. See, e.g., Seinfeld: The Maestro (NBC television broadcast Oct. 5, 1995) (satirizing Liebeck v. McDonald's Rests., P.T.S., Inc., No. CV-93-02419, 1995 WL 360309 (D.N.M. Aug. 18, 1994), vacated, 1994 WL 16777704 (D.N.M. Nov. 28, 1994)). In this episode of Seinfeld, one of the main characters, Kramer, sues a local coffee shop for serving him coffee that was too hot, burning his stomach (because he had attempted to sneak the coffee hidden in his waistband into a movie theater). Id. 2. See William M. Landes, An Empirical Analysis of Intellectual Property Litigation: Some Preliminary Results, 41 Hous. L. REV. 749, 761 (2004). 3. See Kenneth L. Port, Trademark Extortion: The End of Trademark Law, 65 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 585, 589 (2008); Megan M. La Belle, Against Settlement of (Some) Patent Cases, 67 VAND. L. REV. 375, 377 (2014).

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