Tiffany Suing eBay For Selling Fake Goods

Luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co is suing eBay claiming the Tiffany trademark is being violated by counterfeit items sold on the online auctioneer’s website.

In a lawsuit filed at the district court in New York, Tiffany said a study of certain pieces of "Tiffany" jewelry sold on eBay this year showed that 73 percent was counterfeit and only 5 percent genuine, with the rest claiming to be "Tiffany-like".

The lawsuit asks for eBay to account for profits it made on the sale of counterfeit Tiffany merchandise or else pay up to $1 million for each type of fake Tiffany merchandise.

eBay said it did not have any legal responsibilities as a middleman in the transactions on its site and that it would not be practical to validate every item that was sold since there are around 50,000 groups of products for sale on eBay.

The Tiffany lawsuit marks the first time a prominent maker of brand-name goods has sued eBay in the United States although it has faced a similar challenge from watchmaker Rolex in Germany during the past three years.

Last October, the district court in New York awarded Tiffany & Co damages of $574,000 from the owners of a web site that sold counterfeit Tiffany merchandise.

The jeweler sued the owners of finest4less.com for selling fake merchandise.