30
/ November
2010
Supreme Court Denies Certiorari in Tiffany v. eBay
Trademark valuers take note. Today the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Tiffany v. eBay. What this essentially means is that lower courts' decisions that the virtual auction house was not primarily responsible for the counterfeit trademark on goods being marketed, and trademark owners must take it upon themselves to protect their marks. (There is considerably more detail in the text, and interested parties should read it.)
Assuming a mark that is not aggressively protected is a diluted mark, valuators need to add an exhaustive examination of procedures in place to defend a mark in order to assess how weakened it is.