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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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