Comments on: eBay wins counterfeit-sales suit filed by Tiffany

Federal judge says he's sympathetic to problems that Tiffany faces in identifying counterfeit products on auction sites, but trademark law can't be used to compel eBay to police listings.

[xraydude]

I had an experience a year or two ago where someone was offering to sell with "buy it now" on new 80 GB ipods for a ridiculously low price. I informed ebay that they were selling a questionable or worse product, but near as I could tell, nothing happened. I thought you had to have a credit card on file to have an account. So keeping tabs on illegal activity should be very straight forward and criminals apprehended.

[humanssssss]

This is a good decision. "Tiffany" is a stolen name and the bag company use it to make a name for itself. When a company decides to base their trademark on common name, it is more of a burden on the company to provide trademark infringement.

[nh_chiker]

No one likes to be ripped off by counterfeits. In the end it's the consumer who loses out by paying more for a fake. It's too bad Tiffany and E-Bay can't work together and find a way to protect their customers.

[humanssssss]

Companies that plan to use word that commonly familiar with people should always be subjected to scrutiny of the market. For example, Apple. If people were to sell Apple or Apple this and that, it is Apple's responsibility to go after the person or company that infringes on the company's trademark because Apple is not unique nor should it ever be defensible. In fact, Apple may lose its trademark if its name gets diluted by market force; meaning Apple may need to change its name to be unique if it wants trademark protection.

Same goes with Windows. Windows is not unique.

These technology companies create names that are not unique and based on previous familiar knowledge by consumers to sell a product and should not have this advantage to leverage marketing prominence. That's why I perfectly agree with the decision.

[make_or_break]

'Tiffany' is NOT a "stolen name", as you so blithely put it. Charles Tiffany was a very REAL person who happen to be the FIRST to trademark his own surname for his jewelry business.

Your argument completely skirts the issue of forgery and counterfeit behavior who seek to take advantage of the prior reputation that some else invested in a trademark for their own grubby scheming. Your argument is completely bogus, because the POINT is that Tiffany & Co.--a jewerly maker among all of its other products--has identified a pattern of illicit transactions by others who are--guess what--selling Tiffany-branded jewelry that they presumably had made to cash in on someone else's reputation. Your wayward spin on the issue totally avoids that point.

The judge's decision was based not on whether Tiffany & Co. had any right to their trademark, because in his decision he more or less said they do. His rendering of his decision was based on the point that it's up to the trademark holder to police the use of its own name, and not the responsibility of a third-party like eBay. That said, I disagree with the judge's determination. Considering that Tiffany only sells their own products out of their own stores, it seems highly unlikely a third-party eBay seller would be able to have bulk quantities of REAL Tiffany product. eBay doesn't step in because in the end, it gets a percentage of all those illegal transactions. eBay talks a good game, but it would be bloody EXPENSIVE to have to police every seller that uses its services.

eBay got a reprieve with this ruling. But it's not over yet, especially in those nations that aren't so flippant about the rights of trademark and intellectual property owners.

[BCCM]

There is lots of fraud going on in the Internet. The fake forgeries and frauds are easy to deal with; after been exposed to greedy, racist, frauds you get a fairly decent education. WHat is more troubling is hacker invasion and Chinese and other Government hacking attempts at ordinary citizen computers. This is a much more serious issue I believe. Oh by the way eBay cesored one of our auctions that inadvertently exposed NASA fraud.

http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/NASAcert.html
SRD-BCCM

[BCCM]

There is lots of fraud going on in the Internet. The fake, forgeries and frauds are easy to deal with; after been exposed to greedy, racist, frauds you get a fairly decent education. WHat is more troubling is hacker invasion and Chinese and other Government hacking attempts at ordinary citizen computers. This is a much more serious issue I believe. Oh by the way eBay cesored one of our auctions that inadvertently exposed NASA fraud.

http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/NASAcert.html
SRD-BCCM

[lavern]

Honestly Ebay wouldn't want to stop counterfiet goods. They have alot of revenue coming on such products. its not in thier best interest. There have been several times when I alerted Ebay to counterfiets. They never did a thing.

[whitesites]

I don't think ebay cares about stopping the sale of fake merchadise. Obviously people don't think a LV purse is worth the $1200 it costs. Maybe LV should start embedding gold and precious stones into their stuff. Its pretty hard to replicate that stuff.

[Gromit801]

I find it difficult to believe eBay is not being held culpable to some degree. They are making money in form of listing fees, off any counterfeit products. They're the middle man taking a cut. In the physical world, that's called a "fence," and it's a felony.

[gsmiller88]

Usually eBay will pull any auction where the item is reported as being fake. I was selling authentic HP recovery discs on eBay once, and apparently HP got a hair up their *** about it and reported it and the auction was pulled. Let it be an actual scam though and nothing gets done about it. eBay only adheres to their own policy when they want.

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