What We’re Reading —

A-B Counsel Advocates a Softer Approach to Cease and Desist Letters

Not long after Anheuser-Busch InBev rolled out Bud Light ads featuring the now popular “Dilly Dilly” catchphrase, a Minneapolis pub began selling a “Dilly Dilly” IPA. Rather than send a typical cease and desist letter, the brewing company instead sent a town crier to deliver a more lighthearted request to keep use of the phrase to a limited run.

AB InBev’s move follows a handful of recent so-called “nice” cease and desist letters. In August 2017, Netflix Inc. counsel Bryce Coughlin sent a note to an unauthorized “Stranger Things” pop-up bar, asking that the Chicago establishment restrict the run of the pop-up to the planned six weeks. “[P]lease don’t make us call your mom,” Coughlin wrote.

TGI Fridays counsel took a similar approach in October of last year, and in 2012, Jack Daniel’s tested a softer tone with a letter to an author whose book cover resembled one of the whiskey maker’s labels.

Why does a polite, and even funny, approach to a cease and desist letter sometimes make sense? Read more here, from Corporate Counsel.

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