eBay gets Sued (Again) for "Counterfeit" Sales on Site

Pocket-lint is reporting that eBay is being sued by Louis Vuitton and Dior Coutre. The actions allege that eBay doesn't do enough to stop the sale of counterfeit merchandise on their site.

Louis Vuitton is asking for $26 million and wants Dior Coutre $22 million in damages. The actions were filed in Euros - so the dollar figures are approximate.

Link, here.

Louis Vuitton isn't the first organization to sue eBay for selling counterfeit goods bearing their name. Tiffany filed an action in 2004 after commissioning a study which claimed that 73 percent of their items sold on eBay were counterfeit.

The Tiffany action is still pending.

Microsoft has taken a slightly different tact and has filed actions against the sellers (directly).

The buySAFE blog and Jeff Grass led me to this story via a del.icio.us article he "saved." When I found this story - I found another story Jeff saved - where eBay is suing start up auction sites for "trademark infringement."

Note that all these legal actions have one thing in common - they allege the wrongful use of a "name."

To read this article by MarketWatch - link here.

Law suits keep a lot of lawyers employed.

In all fairness - - counterfeiting is a worldwide problem -- and counterfeits aren't only sold on eBay. Here is a post, I wrote awhile back, which covers this:

Counterfeit Goods, A Borderless Problem