Ebay wins this time
Jack Denver
"EBay has scored an important victory against a longtime legal nemesis.
In a long-awaited decision in a four-year-old trademark lawsuit against eBay
brought by jeweler Tiffany and Co., Judge Richard Sullivan of the Federal
District Court in Manhattan ruled Monday that the online retailer does not
bear a legal responsibility to prevent its users from selling counterfeit
items on its marketplace.
The decision in the closely watched case, which will likely be appealed by
Tiffany, reaffirms that Internet companies do not have to actively filter
their sites for copyrighted or trademarked material. Rather, they can rely
on intellectual property-holders to monitor the sites, as long as the
retailers take material down when rights-holders complain. The decision
marks a dramatic turn in eBay's recent courtroom fortunes. The ruling comes
a week after a French judge ordered eBay to pay $60 million to French luxury
goods maker LVMH, the maker of Louis Vuitton handbags. In April, a German
appeals court ruled that eBay must take preventative measures against the
sale of counterfeit Rolex watches."
I believe this indicates that European courts generally afford more
protection to trademark owners than American courts, perhaps because luxury
brands are flagships of their export economy to a greater extent than the
US. Tiffany is a well known name but not in the same league as LVMH or Rolex
as an export engine. You may read the court opinion here:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/20080714ebay_tiffany.pdf
The court recognizes that while restricting sales of counterfeits is
legitimate, restricting the secondary market in genuine brand name
merchandise (which trademark owners such as Tiffany would also like to do)
is not. On the other hand, Ebay's contention that is it just an electronic
classified ad service is rejected - instead the court considers ebay to be
more like the operator of an electronic flea market who rents "tables" to
sellers. Such an operator has certain duties to prevent sales of
counterfeits once they are pointed out to them but is not required to
anticipate the possibility of future counterfeit sales in advance.
Basically the court puts the burden on the trademark owner to point out
which goods are counterfeit. Tiffany wanted to shortcut the process and have
ebay assume that anyone who sold more than 5 Tiffany items was a
counterfeiter - the court rejected this request as being beyond Tiffany's
legal rights to demand. Tiffany apparently preferred to spend its money on
lawyers suing ebay rather than doing the grunt work of searching for
counterfeits on a daily basis - they only employed 1 paralegal to do this,
while the money they spend on this suit could have paid for an army of
paralegals for decades. I think the court strikes the right balance and I
applaud their wisdom. Trademark owners can be bullies with their cease and
desist letters because even if you as an individual are within your rights,
defending yourself in court would cost far more than what you have to gain.
So you give in to the blackmail and comply. Unfortunately, Tiffany chose
this time to pick on the deep pocketed ebay so their bullying failed.
Frank Adam
<nunu...@netscape.net> wrote:
<snip>
>goods maker LVMH, the maker of Louis Vuitton handbags. In April, a German
>appeals court ruled that eBay must take preventative measures against the
>sale of counterfeit Rolex watches."
>
>I believe this indicates that European courts generally afford more
>protection to trademark owners than American courts, perhaps because luxury
>brands are flagships of their export economy to a greater extent than the
>US. Tiffany is a well known name but not in the same league as LVMH or Rolex
>as an export engine. You may read the court opinion here:
>
Must be because they know that they don't reply to emails or phone
calls, so they need all the help they can get. ;-)
Recall about 5 months ago when i contacted Greiner to get some pepers
for the B200 ? I did that again since and still nada..
A bunch of fucks and i hope someone will fake their machines. I have
sent emails to Japanes, Chinese, Taiwanese and indeed US companies
before and a reply(be it positive or negative) was there within 24
hours..
--
Regards, Frank
Frank Adam
Whoops. Gotta take some of that back.. They're either reading the
group or got a lousy mail server. This time i did get a reply just
today.
Weird. Looking at the headersm, it arrived some 7 days after the send
date. :-/
--
Regards, Frank
Moka Java
received a response:
"Thank you for writing eBay in regard to your desire to create a legally
compliant listing.
"Because eBay does not handle or inspect the items offered for sale, we
are not in a position to approve or endorse your listings. I encourage
you to take the steps that you feel necessary to satisfy your concerns
regarding the legitimacy of the item and to be sure that your listing
follows eBay policy.
"To review our guidelines for creating legally compliant listings, please
visit:
"http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/compliant-listings.html
"For an overview of the rules about intellectual property, go to:
"http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/intellectual-property-ov.html"
Dunno if things are different for EU sellers of it my almost 10 years of
selling on Ebay has anything to do with the response to me but my
listings of various "luxury" watches has not been interfered with.