EBay, British luxury goods group to discuss counterfeit sales

Intellectual property lawyers from eBay Inc. and Walpole British Luxury, a group that represents the British luxury goods industry, are meeting Monday in London to discuss ways they can work together to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods online.
The meeting comes after courts in the U.S. and France gave contrasting rulings on the issue of who is responsible for averting the sale of counterfeit goods on Web sites.
"Basically these are exploratory talks because we have two different rulings in two different jurisdictions," said Gavin Davis, a Walpole spokesman in London. "And Walpole just wants to speak to eBay to see what both groups can do going forward."
Davis said the meeting was a first step to discuss ideas that could lead to an agreement between the two parties in collaborating to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods on eBay.
Last week, federal Judge Richard Sullivan for the Southern District of New York, ruled in favor of eBay in concluding that Tiffany & Co. was responsible for monitoring the eBay Web site for counterfeit Tiffany goods and for bringing those counterfeit goods to eBay's attention.
In 2004, Tiffany sued eBay, claiming that the online auction site didn't do enough to keep counterfeit goods off its Web site. EBay disagreed, saying it already took steps to stop the sale of counterfeit goods through its Verified Rights Owners (VeRO) Program, which provides tools to help companies look for phony goods. Under the program, if a company determines that a user is selling counterfeit merchandise, it notifies eBay, which immediately takes down the auction.
However, in June, the Tribunal de Commerce in Paris fined eBay $61 million for allowing the sale of Louis Vuitton Malletier and Christian Dior Couture counterfeit goods on its Web site. That decision came on the heels of a similar ruling by a separate French court that ordered eBay to pay $31,000 to Hermes International for selling fake Hermes handbags.
"The court decisions on both sides of the Atlantic seek to place the full burden of policing online fakes on either the online auctioneers or the trademark owners," said Frederick Mostert, chairman of the Walpole IP & Brand Protection Working Group, in an op-ed piece in the Financial Times last week.
Mostert said more needs to be done and both sides need to work together to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods online.
"The answer for assessing responsibility lies in the middle - both sides should, in equal measure, diligently confront the online counterfeit problem together," he said.

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