Europe's top court says retailers like eBay can be held responsible for infringement of trademarks by goods they sell, national courts can order online retailers to stop trademark infringement
Kendall Sinclair
BRUSSELS
,
July 12, 2011
(Associated Press)
–
Europe’s top court says that online retailers like eBay can be held responsible for the infringment of trademarks by goods they sell.
The European Court of Justice said Tuesday national courts can order online retailers to stop trademark infringement and prevent similar incidents in the future.
The decision came in response to a case brought by French cosmetics company L’Oreal against eBay in the U.K.
L’Oreal complained that some of its products that were not deemed for sale in Europe were being offered on eBay and that the retailer was not making enough of an effort to prevent such sales.
However, the court said that online retailers should be allowed to buy brand names as keywords for online ads on services like Google.
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