I got a letter today. A company sent me a letter as an attach file in an email. the company claims that they have the term "cheat codes" as a trademark. They claim that their website www . cheatcodes . com is suffering since im using the term "cheat codes" in my page title and in my content. They want me to remove all mention of the term "cheat codes" on my website to prevent further damage to their business. Whats your input on this ?
Doesn't seem to be any such US registeration. The singular version is so if you got the letter from these people I would tak it seriously: Source: US patent office database.
Sounds like you may have a fair use defense even if they do have a registered mark. Are you referring to them in your use, or simply using the commons verbiage common in the industry? Either way, you may have solid fair use defenses.
I take it your ranking highly for some common phrases associated with cheat codes? You should do a bit of google research to determine if they've ever filed similiar cases before. I'm by no means a lawyer but I'd say this phrase has been diluted and is so generally used that it'd be hard to defend it.