L'Oreal Keeps Trying: Appeals French Ruling Against eBay

from the can't-stop dept

It appears that L'Oreal just refuses to give up. The company has sued eBay in a bunch of different countries trying to get a court somewhere to admit that eBay is somehow liable for actions of its users. To date, it's been a clean shutout against L'Oreal, who has lost cases in Belgium, the UK and France (I believe cases are still pending in Germany and Spain, though it's hard to keep up). The ruling in France was the biggest surprise, given that French courts have ruled the other way in the past. Given that, it looks like L'Oreal isn't done yet on its home turf, as it's appealing the ruling in France. At some point, one would hope that L'Oreal would realize that going after eBay is targeting the wrong party, but it appears that no one at L'Oreal seems all that interested in actually understanding the issues, and wants to see how many shots it can get at making eBay pay up.

Filed Under: auctions, liability, platforms, trademark, users
Companies: ebay, l'oreal

L'Oreal Looks For Friendlier Locales In Its Suits Against eBay

from the you-can-even-shop-for-jurisdictions-easily-online dept

US courts have generally recognized that eBay isn't liable for the actions of people who use its site to sell counterfeit goods, though a recent decision went the other way. This situation reflects the lack of uniformity around the world in this type of case: for instance, eBay was found liable in France, but was not in Belgium. In the Belgian case, eBay was sued by cosmetics maker L'Oreal, but the company hasn't let the ruling slow it down, as it's now filed a similar suit in the UK. It's also sued eBay in France, Germany and Spain -- which could lead one to believe that it's jurisdiction shopping, simply filing suits in many different countries and seeing what sticks, with the hopes that victory in one place will force eBay to play ball worldwide. The issue of eBay's lack of liability as a platform provider remains an important one, but the problem of international jurisdiction shopping remains a massive one for companies online.

Filed Under: auctions, jurisdiction shopping, resale, trademark
Companies: ebay, l'oreal

Are Intellectual Property Sales Growing In The Recession?

from the evidence-please dept

The Chicago Tribune has an article claiming that intellectual property sales are "growing" despite the recession, as companies look to sell off what they're not using. Except... the article doesn't present any evidence whatsoever. It simply quotes some execs at Ocean Tomo, the IP auction house who has a vested interest in getting more companies to "sell" their patents. It's pretty weak that the Chicago Tribune is effectively publishing a press release for Ocean Tomo, never once substantiating the headline or the claims from Ocean Tomo execs. I don't doubt that some companies will grow more desperate and may resort to trying to "sell" useless patents, but if the article (and Ocean Tomo execs) are going to claim it as fact, you'd think they'd present some evidence to back it up.

Filed Under: auctions, intellectual property, recession
Companies: ocean tomo

Hey, Didn't Taxpayers Pay For Those Patents NASA Is Auctioning Off?

from the i-thought-so dept

ReallyEvilCanine writes in to let us know that Ocean Tomo, the patent auctioning company has worked out an agreement to auction off a package of 25 NASA patents covering things like signal processing, GPS for spacecraft and sensor technologies. Ocean Tomo always presents itself as somehow creating value from patents, but always seems to ignore how its version of creating value often means significant value lost to actual innovators. In this case, there's an even bigger question: didn't taxpayers pay for those patents by funding NASA? So why is some company now going to benefit from them, while locking the public out? In effect, the public is paying twice (at potentially inflated prices) for these inventions. Yet, you won't hear that from Ocean Tomo or the press reports about this auction, which note:

"Creating a market for patented technology funded by NASA benefits both the government and the commercial sector that will take advantage of it."

That leaves out the taxpayers who funded this in the first place and is simply incorrect. It harms the commercial sector by making them pay again for something. If NASA wanted to benefit the commercial sector, it could have placed those patents in the public domain, so that the commercial sector could compete to do something useful with them, thereby spurring on competition and more innovation.

Filed Under: auctions, nasa, patents, taxpayers
Companies: nasa, ocean tomo

Will A Google/Yahoo Ad Deal Really Impact Ad Prices?

from the not-so-clear dept

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has sent a letter to the Justice Department opposing Yahoo's plan to hand much of its search advertising over to Google. We've already explained some reasons why this combination shouldn't set off antitrust alarms, but the reasons given by the ANA don't make much sense. It claims that the deal would basically mean that one company would control 90% of the market, which would lead to increased prices for advertisers. However, that doesn't necessarily seem true to follow -- because Google doesn't set prices for ads. Google's ad system is, famously, an auction system where the prices are set by the market. So it's difficult to see why the inclusion of Yahoo's ad inventory would significantly raise the prices -- unless the argument is that the market is artificially depressed right now, and this would just raise it to the proper levels. However, apparently, that might not matter much, as reports are coming out that the Justice Department has already hired a big time antitrust lawyer to use against Google. This is increasingly looking like a political attack on a company that is "big" rather than looking to see if its success actually harms or helps consumers.

Filed Under: advertising, antitrust, auctions, justice department, monopolies, prices, search marketing
Companies: google, yahoo

Wikileaks Tries Auctioning Off Leaked Documents

from the interesting-experiment dept

We've been talking about the variety of new and different business models springing up around investigative reporting, and here's another interesting take on the matter. Wikileaks, the site that's become rather infamous for publishing all sorts of leaked documents is experimenting with auctioning off the latest set of documents its received (in this case, emails from the Venezuelan government). Wikileaks will publish the emails itself eventually, but wants to offer a news organization a chance at the exclusive rights to publish the initial stories on the documents, seeing that as a way to raise money to keep Wikileaks going.

As the folks at Wikileaks point out, it's not all that different than various tabloids paying millions of dollars for "exclusive" photos of some celebrity's new baby. However, with newspapers struggling with their own business models, it's unclear who's really going to cough cash up to get exclusive access to these documents. Also, this model runs all sorts of risks: what if the emails don't really reveal that much of interest? Then you're going to have a pissed off buyer. Plus, the whole obsession with "exclusive" news stories is pretty silly. You can't own the news, and while being first on a story may gain some initial traffic, other news sources will pick up the story pretty quickly themselves.

Filed Under: auctions, breaking news, exclusivity, highest bidder, wikileaks

Belgian Court Agrees With US Court That eBay Not Liable For Fake Products

from the another-good-decision dept

Just days after Tiffany appealed the correct US ruling that eBay isn't liable for counterfeit goods sold on the site, a Belgian court has sided with eBay in a very similar lawsuit involving L'Oreal. Apparently, the Belgian courts understand how liability works a lot better than their neighbors in France, who ruled the other way in a case involving Louis Vuitton.

L'Oreal says it's "surprised" by the decision and will appeal, but fails to explain why eBay, as a platform maker, should be responsible for what people do with that platform. About the only answer seems to be that L'Oreal recognizes eBay is an easier target than going after those actually responsible (those selling the counterfeit goods). It's nice that most courts recognize that the easiest entity to sue is not necessarily the proper entity to sue.

Filed Under: auctions, counterfeit, fraud. belgium, liability, luxury goods
Companies: ebay, l'oreal

Tiffany Still Confused About How Liability Works; Appeals eBay Decision

from the let's-try-this-again dept

Last month a US court correctly pointed out that eBay was not liable for counterfeit products showing up on the auction site. That doesn't mean that it's legal to sell counterfeit products, just that eBay isn't liable for the counterfeits showing up there. Instead, it should be the person who actually lists the item that's liable. That makes perfect common sense. Except to Tiffany, apparently.

The company is now appealing the ruling, making some bizarre arguments in its own defense:

"If one were a flea market operator and you become aware that counterfeiting is going on with the individual sellers at the flea market, you have a duty to investigate it. Why is eBay any different from that analogy?"

Well, two things, actually. First, it's the individual seller in that situation that's liable, not the flea market operator, and much more importantly, eBay is quite different than a typical flea market in that it doesn't pre-vet any of the sellers. A traditional flea market involves the flea market operator finding sellers. eBay is just a platform where anyone can sell. That is, eBay has simply no knowledge of what anyone is selling on the site -- nor should it be required to. The law is pretty clear on this, so it's not at all clear what Tiffany thinks it's going to accomplish here other than to waste a lot of money on lawyers who seem to be giving the company really bad advice.

Filed Under: auctions, flea markets, liability, section 230
Companies: ebay, tiffany

Software Industry Assocation About To Learn What Safe Harbors Mean

from the if-you-want-to-waste-your-money,-go-right-ahead... dept

It appears that the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is about to learn what DMCA safe harbors mean. The group is apparently upset about the fact that some people sell counterfeit software on eBay. That's not surprising. But, the SIIA is planning to sue eBay for this activity, rather than going after the counterfeiters themselves. Of course, if anyone from the SIIA had been paying attention, they would know that courts in the US have repeatedly found that eBay and sites like it are protected by various safe harbor provisions. This is for a very good reason: it's not eBay counterfeiting anything. eBay is merely the platform. If the SIIA wants to go after the actual counterfeiters, that's their issue. But going after eBay for providing the platform is going to fail miserably. You would think that a trade group that claims they cover the "Information Industry" would know that already.

Filed Under: auctions, copyright, counterfeits, dmca, liability, safe harbors, siia
Companies: ebay, siia

US Courts Recognize That eBay Isn't Responsible For Auctions By Users

from the a-good-ruling dept

Unlike last month's awful ruling in a French court, costing eBay millions, a US court has correctly recognized that eBay should not be found responsible for auctions of counterfeit goods. This case involved Tiffany Co., who wanted eBay to be held liable for others selling fake Tiffany goods on eBay auctions. The court sided with eBay on every single charge, and smacked down Tiffany over and over again in the ruling. It noted that eBay is not responsible for the actions of its users, and Tiffany is wrong to suggest that eBay has the responsibility to monitor the auction site for infringing auctions. eBay does take down such counterfeit auctions when made aware of them, and that is all that the company is required to do. The court specifically points out that the Supreme Court had already rejected the idea of a "reasonable anticipation" standard that would have made eBay liable, even though Tiffany tries to suggest otherwise. The court also notes that eBay didn't infringe on Tiffany trademarks in mentioning Tiffany in advertisements for the site. This is an excellent overall ruling, and nearly the complete opposite of the terrible French ruling.

Filed Under: auctions, counterfeit goods, liability, platforms
Companies: ebay, tiffany