USPS cease and desist

In August 2003, the United States Postal Service (USPS) served the band with a cease and desist letter, citing the band’s name as tarnishment and dilution of their trademark on the phrase “postal service”. The band initially considered renaming themselves. Gibbard instead traveled to Los Angeles and met with representatives for the agency to negotiate and come to a consensus. In the end, the duo inked a licensing agreement with the agency; the deal specified that the duo could continue to use the name if it agreed to promote the actual U.S. Postal Service, and perform at its annual National Executive Conference in Washington, D.C., in November 2004. The band’s CDs were then sold on the USPS’s official website, with the music being used in their advertisements. Tamborello, in an interview with Pitchfork , said the affair seemed “depressing” at first but ended up “kind of fun”. They performed only two songs, and briefly met with the Postmaster General . He noted that “Everyone was sort-of in on the joke.” In 2007, the instrumental of “Such Great Heights” appeared in the background of the “whiteboard” advertising campaign for one of the federal establishment’s private competitors, the United Parcel Service .