Tiffany Loses Trademark Lawsuit to Ebay
[ via Reuters ]
Tiffany & Co. filed a lawsuit against EBay Inc four-years ago, the ruling was handed down yesterday, in favor of EBay. Tiffany & Co, among many other brands, has alleged that eBay turned a blind eye to the sale of fake "trademarked" goods on its site. EBay's position is that it is not legally required to determine which goods are knock-offs. San Jose, California-based eBay claims it takes down more than 90 percent of fake goods from its site within four hours of their posting after being alerted by trademark holders.
EBay may claim to take down 90 percent of the fake goods once alerted by trademark holders, but if this were truly the case I do not think we would see so many lawsuits against the online auctioneer. EBay may not be able to police every seller on their massive site, however they can at least target the high volume counterfeiters. MORE
Comments
Agreed.
I wish Google Adwords/Adsense would follow suit and start blocking replica watch ads, instead of requiring publishers, like myself, to do so manually.
Posted by: Jason Pitsch | July 23, 2008 11:45 AM
It is easy for ebay to make it look like they are doing a lot by saying that they take down 90% of fake trademarked items ONCE they are alerted by the actual company. However, this puts the entire burden of responsibility on companies like Tiffany & Co., TAG Heuer, Rolex and the many others that have flooded the ebay market with knock-offs. The amount of time and dedication it would take for those companies to be continuously monitoring the thousands of ebay listings for their items just simply isn't possible while ebay has it easy when the company sends them a listing number and they just have to click delete.
However, I do know that ebay has begun to take further steps to combat counterfeit items. I know that in some cases power sellers/ buyers of certain brands or types of items are given a special status to be able to report items they believe to be fake. In this way ebay has another method in which possible counterfeits can be brought to their attention. A small step, but a step none the less.
Posted by: Sam DeWind | July 23, 2008 11:36 AM