Cease and desist letter from adidas America, Inc.

It seems it is very popular problem among ebay newbies. I got the same letter demanding $450, surrender all my possesion, and agree to not sell any more. Anybody got any update on this case? I did some research on the internet on found this forum talking about ebay suspension: eBay Suspension & Paypal Forums - Powered by vBulletin. There are some interesting discussion about the cease and desist letter.
Check these two links about the discussion.
Any advice.Received threat of legal prosecution for Ebay items. - eBay Suspension & Paypal Forums
cease-and-desist letter - trademark infringement - VERO - eBay Suspension & Paypal Forums

It seems if you just ignore it, nothing would happen, since these are just very tiny business for them. Their purpose is just scaring us and stopping such kind of sales from us.

BTW, did you guys get both email and physical letters from the attorney?

yes both email and physical. They send a physical letter to everyone, as well as email. Why do you say this happens only to Ebay newbies? People who've been selling for a while are allowed to sell counterfeits?

The cease and desist letter came after removal of your listing from ebay. At first, when my listing was removed from ebay and I got a email from ebay stating that I infringed trademark law, I kept on watching those sellers and their listings on ebay. I found almost 7 of 10 listings were removed in a couple of days watch. However, those powersellers with hundreds or thousands of feedbacks were never removed. They even have stores on ebay selling tons of jerseys. I cannot find any difference between my jeysers from theirs. That's also the reason why I listed my jerseys on ebay. Check the forum which I posted in my last post, there are a lot ebay sellers talking about how to avoid VEro on ebay. If those powersellers do not have any special relationship with ebay, I think the experienced sellers on ebay know how to go around and protect their listings being removed, but newbies, like us do not know. Anyway, they also discussed about how to deal with these kinds of letters. If it is not big money, I think they won't keep pursuing us.

Well here's an update from me, I have yet to comply with their demands and recieved another letter May 12th repeating the same demands and still threatening to take legal action. I am going to take my chances as if I comply with the demands I am just admitting guilt and building a case for them. As of right now all they have against me is some Ebay auctions with small pictures of the jerseys. Since recieveing the first letter, I haven't sold any jerseys, which is the point of all this. Like I said before, they need to go after the suppliers over seas who are manufacturing and distributing these knock off jerseys. How was I to know they were fake?

[02mitsu]

Oops, I forgot to log in, I posted the last message and started this thread.

To 02mitsu,

Thank you very much for the update. Do you mean you got the first letter on March 28, and the second one on May 12? If so, now it is June 8, and you haven't got the third one. Do you think you will get the third one in the coming month? Are those two letters exactly the same? If they are same, I think they just wanna keep annoying you and scaring you, so that you won't sell anymore their products. Good luck everyone.

I forgot to login (HTTR21), but I still have not heard back from them (I'm supposed to send things by 6/10.

To HTTR21,

I sent an email to them last Tuesday but haven't heard from them yet. I am thinking they won't reply because they won't spend any time or money to reply these emails.

Originally Posted by Unregistered To HTTR21, I sent an email to them last Tuesday but haven't heard from them yet. I am thinking they won't reply because they won't spend any time or money to reply these emails.

Forgot to login -

I just received an email back after 8 days:

As you are aware this firm is counsel to the adidas Group (“adidas”).

We are in receipt of your response dated June 2, 2008. Please be advised that your eBay auction was terminated because adidas experts successfully identified the item in question as counterfeit based on the photographs and description you provided.

Under the Lanham (Trademark) Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1117 et seq., not just the sale, but the offer for sale of merchandise bearing counterfeit trademarks regardless of completion of transaction and/or authenticity disclaimers is illegal and attaches liability not only for recovery of profits, but also for treble damages or statutory damages. Even without a showing of willfulness, statutory damages can be awarded up to $100,000 per mark (and the watch in question contained multiple trademarks). In addition, this listing violated the eBay User Agreement, which further prohibits the sale of counterfeit merchandise and mandates that all sellers must guarantee the authenticity of all items offered for sale through eBay.com.

To resolve this matter without the need for further legal action you must remit a check $450 to adidas International, Inc., and send the counterfeit merchandise in your possession along with restitution and information regarding the source of the merchandise to:
Gibney, Anthony & Flaherty, LLP
665 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Attn: John Macaluso, Esq.

Please be advised that our client’s demands are non-negotiable.

You are hereby on notice of our client’s protest in this matter as federal law prohibits you from offering counterfeit merchandise for sale. adidas reserves the right to use all and appropriate legal action in order to enforce the protection of their Trademarks.

We await a response from you or your counsel.


Don't know what to do.

I received one of those letters also. I'm not going to send them anything. I'm going to force them to take this to court if that's what they want to do. Make them jump through hoops to pursue this if that's what they want to do. Then we'll force them to go to jury trial to spend even more money.