Ebay cancelled auctions

[milleniumgroup]

Washington

Last week I received notice that Ebay had cancelled 4 of my auctions - exact wording was "We regret to inform you that we have suspended your account for violating eBay's Trademark Misuse Policy. Misuse of brand names, trademarks, and logos is both illegal and against eBay policy. This includes inappropriate comparisons to a branded item, selling counterfeit or replica items, and keyword spamming." After many Emails back and forth to Ebay, it was determined that the exact reason was "selling counterfeit or replica items" . The auctions cancelled contained no images stolen from any other site, no wording taken from the manufacturers website and did not include any images of their trademark logo.

The auction items pulled were 4 pairs of Citizens of Humanity jeans - high end jeans retailing in the $175.00 plus range. The VERO member that instructed the jeans be pulled was D.A.D.S Denim, the manufacturer and copyright holder. The jeans are 100% authentic, were acquired through an authorized reseller along with an assignment from the reseller of the original invoice from D.A.D.S Denim. When received by us, they were still in the original D.A.D.S packaging. The jeans are further certified authentic by a site called www.honestforum.com . They are also listed here and listing fakes on this site will get you punted.

It is my understanding that once the copyright holder places product into the stream of commerce, his right to control its further resale and distribution is exsponged.

Ebay will unsuspend my account upon instructions from the VERO member that the product is genuine. I have sent two emails, supporting documents, original purchaser info, paper trail etc to DADS with no response.

Where do we go from here?

 

[OUTOFSITE]

How To Get Things Moving On Ebay

Send Them A Certififed Letter And Explain Your Self One More Time And Tell Them That If They Don't Restore Your Account, You Plan On Having A Press Conference...call The Local News And At Least One National Channel...and Tell The World Your Situation...large Companies Hate Bad Press...

 

[divgradcurl]

The auction items pulled were 4 pairs of Citizens of Humanity jeans - high end jeans retailing in the $175.00 plus range. The VERO member that instructed the jeans be pulled was D.A.D.S Denim, the manufacturer and copyright holder. The jeans are 100% authentic, were acquired through an authorized reseller along with an assignment from the reseller of the original invoice from D.A.D.S Denim. When received by us, they were still in the original D.A.D.S packaging. The jeans are further certified authentic by a site called www.honestforum.com . They are also listed here and listing fakes on this site will get you punted.

The key question here is, did the "authorized reseller" have the authority to sell the jeans to you? You are right about the "first sale" doctrine -- once an item is sold, the rights holder has limited rights to control redistribution or resale of the particular object. However, the way the law is written, the "first sale" has to be a "legal" or "authorized" sale to count -- so if the reseller was not authorized by the manufacturer to resell the jeans to you, then this may be a situation where the jeans have not yet "entered the stream of commerce" for the purpose of kicking the "first sale" doctrine into play.

If the reseller was, in fact, authorized to sell you the jeans, then you can sell the jeans. You stated that you didn't use info or pictures from the manufacturer's website -- however, if you used the trademarked name in such a way that it implied that you were an authroized reseller of the jeans, or were in any way associated with, affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by the trademark holder, that itself is enough to show infringement.

 

[milleniumgroup]

EBAY pulled auctions

Thank you for your extremely informative reply.

The bulk of the product that we acquire is end of season, customer returns and overstock from high end shops, namely M@cy's, Bl@@mies and N@rdstr@ms. All of these entities clear this merchandise out through a national liquidator. We also own a business and at least one of our suppliers insists that their unsold product not be pushed out through a liquidation chain. They will pick it up, credit the value of the goods picked up against future purchases, and then promptly give it to the Salvation Army. They do not want to see it firesaled on Ebay.

Although this could be a dangerous assumption, one could logically assume that the likes of M@cy's etc have the right to sell and/or dispose of their dead stock as they see fit.

Again, thanks "divgradcurl" for a very informative reply.