Below... From: "chandler" <chandler@yomogi.or.jp> > andrew fildes <afildes@netlink.com.au> writes: > > [snip] > > However, the page may be short lived - he informs me that ebay has > > thrown him off on the grounds that he may have infringed a patent > > held by someone in the US. This sounds strange to me on several > > grounds. Surely, any dispute (and the guy may not even have a world > > wide patent, There is no such thing as a "world wide patent". Further, this is irrelevant. ebay may have users in many countries, but they are incorporated in the US and must therefore abide by US laws no matter who is selling or buying or where they are. More importantly, they are subject to the US tort system. They fear being sued as being complicint(sp?) since they were "informed" of the infringement. > > and may not even be kosher) is between the patent holder > > and my friend? Isn't it incumbent on the patent holder to seek an > > injunction? I would have thought that ebay are on very shaky ground > > in simply banning his advertisement. It's common for copyright holders to go directly to the outlet where the copyright is being infringed, as well as to the person infringing or finally to the law if necessary. If someone on ebay appears to have infringed on one of your copyrights (photo), you can go to ebay and complain. ebay will attempt to protect you. Do you think this is right? It's the same for patents. As to shakey ground, they can do whatever they want with their policy, so long as they don't discriminate based on race, ethenicity, etc. It's _their_ site, not some government site. > May be ramifications of the Thugs' Charter, aka DMCA et al: if the > people in the USA have more money than your friend, they claim to Ebay > that some "rights" are being infringed, and Ebay have to remove the page > - in principle your friend can start arguing, but in practice he > probably can't afford it. Of course it's absurd; there is no such thing > as a "world-wide patent", See the above... That there is no such thing as a "world-wide patent" is irrelavent. If ebay was incorporated in Japan, it would be subject to Japanese law and to the Japanese tort system. It has it's eccentricities as well. All do. > and US notions of what constitutes an > "invention" are pretty skewed. This is opinion, not fact. Having done many patent searches, I tend to agree with you, but of course this too is opinion. > Nonetheless, Ebay are subject to American > law, and have to protect themselves. Doubtless their terms and > conditions are written under the general American assumption that > America is or should be the world. This is uncalled for and has nothing to do with photography. Please take your hate elsewhere. > (Actually it's interesting that there was one "Nazi memorabilia" case in > which the US judge ruled - absolutely correctly, of course - that yahoo > in the US is *NOT* subject to French law, and may ignored French court > rulings trying to tell it what to do. Unfortunately, awareness of the > opposite situation seems to be longer coming.) This is a nonsense example. Yahoo does not have to obey French law in the US. ebay does, however, have to obey US law in the US.
