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Eversheds comment: L'Oréal's appeal to eBay ruling
Archived article dated Thursday June 25th 2009
Following L'Oréal's appeal to eBay fakes ruling in France, Katie Withers, associate at international law firm Eversheds comments:
“eBay has been sued by a number of high end brand owners, who argue that eBay should be jointly liable for trade mark infringement with its sellers on the grounds that it does not do enough to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods through its site. In particular, L'Oreal has sued eBay in a number of European countries, but so far only the German court has ruled in favour of L'Oreal. This is widely regarded as a vindication of eBay's "VeRo" programme, which is intended to help brand owners identify and remove fakes.
“Despite this apparent endorsement of eBay's policies, L'Oreal's decision to appeal is not surprising. The English Court (which, like the French Court, decided that eBay was not jointly liable for trade mark infringement) has asked for guidance from the ECJ on the question of whether use of trade marks by eBay on its site might constitute infringement and the extent to which L'Oreal might be entitled to prevent eBay from doing certain things. Since L'Oreal and eBay are currently in mediation in France, filing an appeal to the ruling might also offer tactical advantages to L'Oreal.”
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