back to article ECJ could increase online sellers' liability for trademark infringements

E-commerce sites will have to track and block repeat sellers of fakes through their sites or be liable for trademark infringement if the Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) follows the recommendations of an advisor. An ECJ Advocate General has published an opinion that says that electronic marketplaces such as eBay lose their …

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  1. Harry

    This is precisely what is needed, but with two differences ...

    Ebay mostly ignores violation reports, and it can do this safely because nobody other than ebay can easily prove that an item actually was reported.

    What's actually needed is for the EU to set up a reporting system to accept violation reports and forward them anonymously to ebay. If ebay deals with the forwarded report, fine. But more likely than not, ebay will continue to ignore them. Except that this time, the EU has cast iron *evidence* that the problem was reported and wasn't dealt with.

    Laws are only the smallest part of the solution. Proof of evidence and enforcement of violations are the more important part. But the proof could be obtained at minimal ongoing cost by setting up a trusted, independent web site that hosts the evidence that a seller was reported.

    However, even more important is to vigourously clarify the law to ensure that people can't be stopped from selling genuine goods by over-zealous trademark holders who want to unlawfully restrict the product to a select group of favoured sellers. Such a restriction should certainly be prohibited in the case of second hand goods and should probably be outlawed even for unused goods.

  2. Philip Cohen
    Thumb Down

    Utterly unscrupulous eBay

    At the risk of repeating myself, I would have thought that by now everyone would recognize that unless it produces more income for them or threatens their present income, the eBafia will do absolutely nothing about anything, including all forms of fraud or other illegal activities that they facilitate on other than themselves. Regardless, absolutely nothing will be done about anything unless they are prodded (multiple times) by someone, and even then their reaction is likely to be disingenuous, ineffective, unfair or fraudulent. Has it not ever been so?

    eBay/PayPal/Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.

    http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=23540

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Ohhh ho ho Cohen - surely you jest?

    I have some of the stats from Tiffany and many others Vs. Ebay... and it's not a few hundred fakes the got pissy about.

    It's not even a few thousands of fakes....

    Try hundreds of thousands of complaints to Ebay from Tiffany and Co, about Ebay trafficking in fakes.

    The management of sleazbay typically doesn't do shit.

    The profit from moving 35% of the entire worlds fakes, fraud and cheap knock-offs is substantial.

    As Ebay say to the customers who get ripped off, as Ebay says to the companies who product gets faked, as Ebay says to the regulatory authorities all around the world - "A huge fuck you - We don't police the site we only make the service available to others, thus what they do is not our problem".

    The management of Ebay are just two faced crooks anyway.

    Ebay is a global crime syndicate, with their Head Quarters in Switzerland, for their Swiss "tax avoiding" bank accounts, and their Head Office in California - thus depriving California of much needed tax, while the former Ebay CEO tried her arrogant hand in a run for governor.

    To bring wealth to California - she said after having basically never voted for 20 years; by giving people like her self tax breaks, and sacking 40,000 government employees and gutting money from education......

    Meg Whitman gets Booed - by 14,000 women!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOoRCX6yNls

    I love these magical 4 lines: 2.37 - 2.45 Meg Whitman was at a womens conference. She was the only woman on stage. There was 14,000 women in the audience. And they are booing her.

    Ebay is so totally corrupt.....

    http://www.youtube.com/user/cappnonymous

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