According to Reuters, a Paris tribunal found Ebay guilty of misleading consumers today by using mis-spell versions of Louis Vuitton as search engine key words to redirect users to Ebay website links.
The suit was brought by Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), which also makes Christian Dior perfume, Tag Heuer watches, and the champagne that carries its name.
The tribunal ordered Ebay to pay 200,000 euros ($275,800) in damages and 30,000 euros in legal costs incurred by Louis Vuitton.
It also demanded Ebay pay 1,000 euros in penalties every time it used search engine key words that “harmed the reputation of the Louis Vuitton brand”
When a certain number of badly spelt words similar to Louis Vuitton often came up in search engines, the system allowed it to automatically pay search engines such as Yahoo and Google (to have them used as key words directing users to Ebay.
“We are extremely disappointed by this decision,” Yohan Ruso, head of Ebay France told . “We recognise the facts but we think the sanction is disproportionate.”
The company accused eBay of ”harming the trademark and domain name of Louis Vuitton”, by misleading internet users with keywords such as ”Vitton,” ”Viton” and ”Wuiton” among many others and redirecting them to Ebay’s website.
“Louis Vuitton welcomes this decision, which confirms established case law that aims to protect the consumer from the illicit use of company trademarks,” said Nathalie Moull-Berteaux, global intellectual property director of Louis Vuitton, in a statement.
Yohan Ruso, director general of eBay in France, said in a statement, “This case is about the use of Adwords to direct buyers’ listings for authentic goods from eBay sellers. This issue is being used by certain Rights Owners as an excuse to retain total control of what people can buy, where they can buy it from, and how much they have to pay. This is why 750,000 Europeans signed a petition to the European Parliament last year, protesting barriers to internet trade.”
He went on to say, “Though disappointed by the decision given today by the Paris Court in the case opposing eBay to Louis Vuitton Malletier, we are satisfied that the court in damages, instead awarding €200,000. However, the decision flies in the face of the legal victory by eBay on appeal in Belgium (February 11, 2009) in a similar action opposing eBay to Ralph Lauren.
“This issue is being used by certain rights owners as an excuse to retain total control of what people can buy, where they can buy it from and how much they have to pay,” Ebay said in a statement.
Ebay said it had not decided yet whether it would appeal against the decision.
Seems pretty cut and dried to me. If that isn’t diluting the brand, what would be?
Their statement about “controlling what people can buy” is ludicrous.
You know what makes the Louis Vuitton brand so valuable?
The quality of the products?
The design of the products?
The marketing?
No. It’s the lawyers. As far as I’m concerned the only thing that makes the Vuitton brand so valuable is that their lawyers are vicious.
LV products are ugly.
Seems like finding them on ebay creates more product buzz and would not dilute it at all.
The more placed that “support” the brand the better…ebay should block the brand from their site so the saps that bought it in the first place have no place to get at least some of their money back.
Be careful Mike; now that you’ve mentioned the brand on your website, there’s danger lurking.
I think there is a fine line to be tread here, but if Louis Vuitton wanted, they could have outbid eBay on the misspelled keywords. Wouldn’t that demonstrate their willingness to protect their brand just as easily as suing someone?
Now, as for eBay’s whimpering that LV is trying to “control” what people can buy, that’s doesn’t pass the acid test. Frankly, Prada is a far more attractive brand that buying a piece of leather with “LV” written all over it. See? I didn’t need any keywords or LV advertising to form that opinion.
Now, the final point: How does selling a used LV handbag or pocketbook on eBay harm the brand and reputation of the product? If the executives and the legal eagles at LV are really worried about that, they should raid any number of flea markets operating in South Florida, alone!
Final analysis: LV could play bully, they did, and they’re stool for doing so.
Mike,
Is it adsense buys on ebay with the misspellings, organic results under the misspellings or domain traffic that they are talking about?
Larry
Google AdSense
Another Story on it
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y10/m02/i12/s03
Whether you hate their products (or their lawyers), there’s not much difference between buying typo keywords and this crap:
http://louievitton.com/
I love the “Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved” footer. No sense of irony whatsoever.
Obviously this is a bunch of men commenting on LV, I know 100 women that would throw you in front of a bus to get the LV bag on the street.
Secondly, people here really thinks its cool to bid on typos ? That’s interesting then we have threads like this and wonder http://www.namepros.com/638980-is-the-domain-aftermarket-corrupt-2.html
Danny to answer your point, they feel it harms their brand because, (Whether right or wrong) They see themselves as elite and exclusive and being on Ebay next to a chees sandwich listing is cheap and disgusting to them. Ebay to them is a flea market, they cannot patrol the whole world, I know what you mean by real live flea markets its crazy. So they go after the big flea market they can monitor.
The main problem which LV sees with ebay and it’s sellers is the ebay marketplace itself is a problem for most exclusive brands.
In europe 75% of the high brand products are replica. Which means, ebay is one of the main marketplaces for remakes of LV, Prada , Abercrombie and many others.
This is costing these high brand company’s several hundred millions.
Ebay is like a aids virus for these brands, killing there business slowly and no way to control all the “killing business germs” being spread by ebay.
This specialy applies in Europe, because the gateway to asia is so close.
Very interesting indeed. There is danger on every corner for domain owners. I try to stick to the generic, non TM stuff but in this day and age you can still never be sure you’re safe.
pssstt: There is a typo in your title for the article about typo’s:
eBay Has To Pay Hundreds Of Thosands of Euro’s For Typo Searches For Louis Vuitton
Thosands ==> Thousands
I’d have to agree with LV on this one. Same as buying a typo domain of LV.