Is it INFRINGEMENT or HARASSMENT?

Question

I am a seller on Ebay. I was contacted about 6 months ago regarding a suit I had for sale. The contactor said the brand name on the suit was an infringement on HIS brand name/domain registered on the internet for roughly 10 years.

I originally bought the suit, used, from Ebay.

I contacted Ebay, got some stupid canned response about how I was responsible for my listings, and decided to remove the suit. About a month later, I decided to re-list the suit, with a picture of the tag inside.

It didn't sell, and the user continued to harrass me through ebay. EBAY did nothing. I put the user on ignore. I contacted them through their site, which I found in google search. Now they harass me through my personal email. lol

Today they sent me an email saying I may be involved in a possible lawsuit, details to follow. They will not provide me with a name, and funny enough, will not answer phone calls from me to either of their lines.

Anyone? :D

GREAT answers so far. I'm going to leave this here until tomorrow to see if they email me back. My email is attached to my EBAY sales, so changing it is not an option. And the harassment sure does pale in the face of INFORMATION. Thanks to all who've responded so far, I will sleep better tonight. I thought I was in the right, but them threatening me with legal stuff gets me up in arms. heehehee

OK so lol is just listing this suit enough to get me involved in any lawsuit? Does it matter that I have not sold it, it is still in my possession?

Looked up their brand name at that website to the best of my ability, didn't find anything....

LOL OK they answered their OWN question!! HA!
This mornings email contained apicture of a PIG saying OINK with an arrow and they typed 'this looks like you'
second email said I sell infringed items on the internet because I am too ugly to get a job.
LMAO awesome :D

Answer 1

You said they do talk to you via email to harass you but don't talk to you over the phone when you try to contact them. I would do nothing but continue being patient, label each email from them spam, and go on with your business. Lawyers cost too much to sue you over a small thing such as the suit on eBay. It will go away. If they do sue you then get representation and sue them for court costs plus damages.

Answer 2

There can be three possible infringements here. First, is trademark infringement. Is the suit you are selling a brand name that someone else has trademarked. Search the US Patent and Trademark Website (Google search: “Patent Trademark Electronic Search System (Tess)” for the website). Is the name trademarked? If not, the party may still have a trademark infringement suit under common law, but you will have a good idea from the search whether you are dealing with a legitimate business person. Most people register their legitimate trademarks with the trademark office. Second, if the suit you are selling copies the sellers patterns, there may be a copyright infringement suit. Go to http://www.copyright.gov/records/ to search copyrights. Third (this is very unlikely) the suit might be patented but only if it is a technological advance. Even if you are infringing, you bought the suit used, so any damages you might have to pay are minimal. It is not like you are selling thousands of Ralph Lauren knock-offs. If you are only selling one suit, you may get sued, but I doubt it. The amount of money and time it would take to file a lawsuit compared to what they could get from you is so high that it would not make sense to sue you.

Answer 3

It is harassment. Contact Ebay again and try to get in touch with a PERSON. Also, speak to a lawyer.

You are NOT infringing on his trademark, IF that trademark even exists. You are not selling an item brand new that you claim to have made. You are selling something you bought, and is therefore, in the legal sense, USED. An example of this that might help is music Cds. If I MADE the CDs and sold them it is infringement. If I have a CD I don't want and sell it to you, it isn't. I paid for it. They have the money for it. The ONLY person they could possibly have an infringement suit on is the person who made the suit you purchased.

Next, clothing is very hard to copy write. Everyone makes Tshirts, so he can't mean the style of the clothing. He must mean the brand name of the label. Therefore, the only person he has any case against is the person who produced that brand under that label. He can only sue them IF his trademark was copy written BEFORE they used it. (example, I sell 50 shirts with a label on them saying "gobbledygook brand" and a month AFTER I sold them you register the name, you have no lawsuit. I might, but you don't.

So no, you are not infringing on his rights, he is illegally harassing you.

Answer 4

First of all, it's not infringement if what you're selling is what it is. The manufacturer may have infringed, but you're just a reseller. If he's won a case against the mfr, he needs to get a cease and desist order to stop you from selling it, unless someone ripped off his brand name (knock-off) and you know it's not original. If this guy doesn't make suits, his beef is not with you.

As for harassment, he's definitely getting close to the line. He is allowed to take reasonable steps to protect his interests, but that would stop at sending you an email or two and contacting EBay. If he wants to pursue it further, he needs to go to court. This is different from someone trying to collect a debt. They can pursue you much farther. If this guy thinks you've infringed on him, he needs to sue you.

Answer 5

He's just pestering you. You owned the suit and were selling it as such, it could only be infringement if you made it and he actually had a patent/copyright on it! He probably just didn't want to compete with you.

If he really wanted to sue someone, he would have to sue the creator/maker of the suit. Although, if you actually knew it was a fake (ie, copyrighted - illegal copy) and tried to sell it, you could be criminally liable, but not civilly liable.

--Z--

Answer 6

Harrasment. They contact you online all of the time but won't talk to you on the phone. Something sounds funny about this. Change your email or have their email checked as spam.

Answer 7

Hire a lawyer and DO NOT endorse the idiot's product in the future.