This is the first communication in our suite of templates covering the infringement of your intellectual property rights by someone else.
If the infringement concerns the infringement of your IP rights on a website, or an infringing domain name, you’ll need our separate suites of templates, starting either with our First complaint that someone’s infringed your rights on a website or First complaint that your domain name has been infringed.
You can find these template suites in our guide to handling someone infringing your rights on a website and/or our guide to someone using a similar domain name.
You’ll see that this particular template contains the option for you to include, on a without prejudice basis, wording enabling the infringer to agree and sign a commitment to cease the infringement, removing the need for you to take further action on a more formal basis.
There’s more guidance on what this means and how to handle this drafting option as you work your way through the template.
You might choose to send that ‘open letter’ at the same time as, or slightly ahead of this template letter, if you decide to include the optional settlement wording provided in this template – which is designed to speed the resolution process and is generally recommended.
####Your IP rights
There are various types of IP rights and Farillio’s template covers the infringement of the main ones. A good starting point for working out what rights you have is our guide to intellectual property rights. From there, you’ll be able to delve deeper into copyright, design rights, trade marks, passing off and patents.
Farillio’ template here is appropriate to all IP infringement rights except patents. If you’re facing a patent infringement, we strongly recommend that you speak with a patent attorney/lawyer without delay.
For more information on infringements of your IP, see our comprehensive guide on this topic, which provides a step-by-step recipe, curating all the information, templates (including this one), and the steps you’ll need to take to defend this key intellectual property right successfully.
And for friendly expert help about what to do when you’re faced with an infringer, especially if you need help tracking down who’s responsible, or if they’re beyond the UK and/or you’re not sure where they’re based, the friendly experts at Stobbs can help you.