U.K. High Court to eBay: Not Guilty, But You Could Be Doing More
By Anna Johnson on May 25th, 2009Last week the U.K. High Court of Justice ruled that eBay Europe was not liable for allowing users to sell counterfeit L’Oreal beauty products on its website, nor for the trade mark infringements of its users.
The court said, however, that while eBay was doing all it was legally required to do to protect trade mark owners’ rights, it could do more.
Indeed, the court made 10 suggestions for how eBay could alleviate trade mark infringement on its site:
- Filter listings before they are posted on the site.
- Use additional filters, including filters to detect listings of not-for-sale products and unboxed products.
- Filter descriptions as well as titles.
- Require sellers to disclose their names and addresses when listing items.
- Impose additional restrictions on the volumes of high risk products, such as fragrances and cosmetics, that can be listed at any one time.
- Be more consistent in their policies, for example regarding sales of unboxed products.
- Adopt policies to combat types of infringement which are not presently addressed, and in particular the sale of non-European Economic Area (EEA) goods without the consent of the trade mark owners.
- Take greater account of negative feedback (from site users).
- Apply sanctions more rigorously.
- Be more rigorous in suspending accounts linked to those of users whose accounts have been suspended.
Implementing these measures would undoubtedly help trade mark owners, but would also increase eBay’s cost of doing business, which it would likely pass on to users.
I wonder, though, given that eBay’s business hasn’t been what it once was, would doing any of the above make doing business on eBay more… or less… attractive? And for buyers… or sellers?
