A trademark dispute between two South Florida organizations serving Hispanic women has spilled into cease-and-desist letters, a mistaken $5,000 bill, and dueling claims over who has the right to use a strikingly similar name. Liliam López, who leads the U.S. Hispanic Women's Chamber of Commerce, says a newer group founded by Yamilet Rivas has caused real confusion among vendors, donors and the public by operating under an almost identical English-language name. Rivas, for her part, says the conflict could be resolved amicably if the two sides simply talked.
The dispute, first reported by the Miami Herald, centers on Rivas's organization, the Cámara de Comercio de Mujeres en Estados Unidos de América, which uses “U.S. Hispanic Women's Chamber of Commerce” as its English-language name. That name closely mirrors López's own organization, which she says she founded in 2003. According to the Herald's reporting, potential donors, public members and invited guests have landed on Rivas's website while searching for López's chamber, and Rivas's group has used the likeness to attract people and honor officials at its events.
López filed a federal trademark application for the U.S. Hispanic Women's Chamber of Commerce name on June 25, according to the Herald's reporting. Rivas's organization, however, had already registered its own name with the Florida Department of State before that date, per the same account — a timeline detail that could prove significant given how federal trademark law treats prior local use.
A $5,000 Bill Sent to the Wrong Chamber
The confusion turned costly this past July, when López says she received a $5,000 demand letter from a vendor that had actually been hired by Rivas's organization, per López. The vendor mistakenly believed López's group had skipped out on the bill, the Herald reports. Rivas's organization ultimately paid the $5,000 bill in full, and Rivas's attorneys communicated with the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to clarify the mistaken reference, according to the same report.
López's attorney followed up by sending Rivas and her group a formal cease-and-desist letter, which cited trademark infringement and deceptive and unfair trade practices, the Herald reports. Through that letter, López demanded that Rivas's group stop using its name and offer a formal apology. López told the Herald the dispute has been affecting her reputation and her board members.
Rivas has pushed back on the confrontational approach. She said concerns about the overlapping names could have been addressed through cordial dialogue rather than legal threats, and she told the Herald she believes the two groups can amicably find a solution. Rivas also said she welcomes other organizations supporting Hispanic women and their success.
Two Very Different Timelines, Two Rising Profiles
López's roots in South Florida's civic and business establishment run deep. She co-founded the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on July 21, 1994, building it into an organization that now represents over 1,650 members across the region, according to Herald reporting; earlier reporting from Miami Today put its annual operating budget at approximately $650,000. In 1996, López also established the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which has awarded over $750,000 in high school scholarships and led career development programs for minority public school students in Miami-Dade County, according to FIU's President's Council. Before founding her chamber network, López served as Executive Director of the Spanish American League Against Discrimination and spent a decade hosting the weekly public affairs show “Panorama con Liliam López” on WLRN, per the same FIU profile.
López's organization has also built recent momentum of its own: Mayor Christi Fraga handed López a City of Doral proclamation at the Hispanic Leadership Awards Lunch, held at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables on March 14, 2025, according to the Herald's reporting. López has also organized a Washington event bringing together female leaders from across the country, with her organization inviting guests to a Washington, D.C. gathering set for September 23, per the Herald.
Rivas, meanwhile, has built a rapid public profile of her own. In October 2025, Florida state officials, Miami-Dade County and the City of Doral officially proclaimed October 2 as “Día de la Mujer Hispana” following civic advocacy led by Rivas and her organization, according to Ejecutiva Magazine. During the proclamation ceremony at Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus, Rivas was presented with an official U.S. flag flown over the Capitol in Washington, D.C., requested in her honor by U.S. Senator Rick Scott, according to CAMACOM. Rivas's organization has also sent invitations for a Miami event scheduled for October, per the Herald's reporting.
Rivas serves as CEO of the custom software firm TechsMIA and hosts “Strive 305 en Español,” a small-business podcast produced in partnership with Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava's Strive 305 entrepreneurial support program, according to CAMACOM.
Why the Timing and the Legal Standard Matter
The dispute hinges on a nuance of federal trademark law. Under Section 15 of the Lanham Act, a business that established unregistered common-law use of a name in a specific geographic market before another entity's federal trademark filing can retain rights that limit or supersede that filer's exclusivity within that local territory, according to the Alabama Law Review. Separately, under Section 2(d) of the Lanham Act, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office evaluates competing applications under a “likelihood of confusion” standard, weighing name similarity, overlapping commercial channels, and documented instances of actual marketplace confusion, according to a legal analysis from Business Attorneys. The vendor mix-up over the $5,000 bill and the overlapping invitations to similar civic events are the kind of real-world confusion that standard is designed to assess.
An Eleventh Circuit decision dated June 21, 2011, states that common-law trademark rights are “appropriated only through actual prior use in commerce,” citing Planetary Motion, Inc. v. Techsplosion, Inc. (Eleventh Circuit, No. 10-11837). In a separate case filed October 3, 2017, the Eleventh Circuit addressed common-law trademark rights in a dispute over a band name and discussed whether the competing use created a likelihood of confusion (Eleventh Circuit, Case No. 15-13830).
The clash also reflects a broader boom in Latina entrepreneurship that has fueled demand for chamber representation across South Florida. Florida ranks second nationwide behind California with more than 138,000 Hispanic women-owned businesses, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Nationally, the number of Hispanic women-owned businesses grew by 172% between 2007 and 2018, reaching more than 1.9 million firms with roughly 400 new Latina-owned businesses launching every day, according to the National Women's Business Council. That growth helps explain why two organizations with overlapping missions and now overlapping names have found themselves competing for the same donors, vendors and civic spotlight.
