eBay Win in Tiffany Case is a Victory For e-commerce, Legal Experts Say
July 16, 2008, PC Magazine/Internet Retailer, among others

As reported in multiple outlets, a federal judge found that eBay, Inc. should not be held liable for the sale of counterfeit Tiffany merchandise on its site.  eBay had recently lost a similar case against LMVH, the parent company of Louis Vuitton, in France and the decision for Tiffany would have had major implications for e-commerce and online retailers such as eBay and craigslist.

"A decision for Tiffany in the case would have drastically altered the e-commerce landscape by for the first time making online retailers responsible for monitoring postings of goods for sale on their sites, ," says Chris Glancy, a partner in the Litigation and Intellectual Property Practice at White & Case in New York.

"Online retailers should feel some relief from this decision," and that includes social net-work sites like MySpace and Facebook whose users may post notices of goods for sale, he said. "Had Tiffany prevailed and had this court fashioned this new duty, those sites arguably would have had to have some internal monitoring procedures that go beyond their current policies," Glancy continued. 

As an example, Glancy used a possible Apple computer for sale on Facebook.  Under the alternate ruling, if Facebook did not verify it was an Apple product, they would be opening themselves to legal actions by Apple.