IP SUMMIT 2010
at stake, can lead to bad buyer experiences for users, who won’t come back to the site if they have a couple of bad experiences. We’ve set up a very sophisticated reporting system, known as VeRO, which gives rights owners the tools to report listings of allegedly counterfeit goods to us. If they ever find anything on the site that looks suspicious, they have very sophisticated, automated tools to report those to us and make sure they get removed as soon as possible. Most are removed within four hours. In principle everything is removed with 24 hours.
Tis is combined with our rights owner relations department, which actively reaches out to rights owners to inform them of the tools at their disposal, but also to work out a solution if there are specific, pervasive problems, where our reporting system may not be enough. Ten we work on a one-by-one basis to address the problems with a wider array of tools. We also do a lot proactively ourselves.
How much counterfeit material is sold on eBay?
Te only thing we can do is measure what we know of. Our latest data for 2009 has shown that
a negligible share of listings is suspicious—less than 0.2 percent. Tis is based on reports of rights owners and of our community of users, and what we find proactively. In any physical market, such a low level would be a raging success for enforcement. For us, it is evidence that our methods are good, and an incentive to keep our systems in place. Zero counterfeiting is impossible, but we try to get as close as we can.
Is it your responsibility to police counterfeit goods on eBay?
Tere’s a joint responsibility. We see very clearly that the brand owner is the first responsible for his own brand, for the simple reason that the brand owner is the best expert on the brand. We as eBay can never acquire that expertise. For example, we have more than 30,000 rights owners in our VeRO programme. It’s impossible for us to be an expert in all those products. So we need to work together and that’s what we do.
What is the legal position on this? Is it clear?
For us, it’s clear. Tere are, however, some judges and courts that still have difficulty understanding how the Internet works and how businesses
like eBay work. Our position is clear. We are an e-commerce platform where buyers and sellers come together, where we give them tools to create listings of products—products we never see. We provide hosting services by providing the platform for others to trade on. If we become aware of specific listings with problems, it is our responsibility to take it down. Any obligation that would go further than that would create a de facto obligation to monitor everything on the site.
Is there anything you’d like to change about the way that brands/legislators approach this issue?
Tat links into our upcoming response to the e-commerce consultation. We would say don’t change the current e-commerce directive—it’s actually very future-proof. Considering there have been different interpretations, it would be good if the Commission could provide some clarification on elements of the directive that have been subject to different interpretation in the various member states. As for brand owners, we continue to reach out to them to fight counterfeiting in a co-operative manner.
www.worldipreview.com
World Intellectual Property Review November/December 2010
45
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108