AT&T sues Verizon WIreless

AT&T filed a suit against Verizon Wireless accusing them of false advertising and deceptive trade practices. AT&T said that Verizon Wireless was copying their “there’s an app for that” ads by using a slogan that reads “there’s a map for that”. Also, Verizon Wireless showed U.S. maps with areas that their 3G network covers. Then, they showed maps of areas that Verizon Wireless covers compared to AT&T. On the map, Verizon Wireless seemed to cover much more than AT&T does. AT&T complained that those maps are simply misleading because there is still coverage in areas where the 3G network is not offered.

In my opinion, AT&T is just trying to look for a reason to sue Verizon Wireless. It might be because AT&T isn't making enough money or they want to make more. But in my opinion, this issue is not something everyone should get angry over, and it's just not that big of a deal.

Also, I always see commercials in which companies directly attack other companies through advertisements. I remember a few years ago, the advertisements would always involve the companies' products, then another "standard" or "normal" product. For example, Charmin used to compare their product to the regular quilted brand, not attacking any other companies.
Most other commercials used to be like this as well. But now, companies attack each other directly. For example, in the newer Charmin commercials, they started to compare their product to the Ultra Rippled Brand, directly attacking this company as lower than and not as well-developed as the Charmin brand.

This is basically what I think about this issue. I think that what Verizon Wireless is doing is unfair, but everyone's doing it nowadays so they shouldn't get sued for doing something that everyone does. If every company sued other companies that "copied" or damaged the image of their companies, then every company would be sued at least once. So I don't think that this lawsuit is something that AT&T should attempt to accomplish. I don't believe that Verizon is "copying" from or mistating anything about AT&T, and AT&T should just calm down a little bit.

Tiffany v. Tiphony

Can you tell the difference between these two rings? Well, the one on the left is real, and the one on the right is fake.

eBay is just a garage sale online. Do you think everything at a garage sale is what it looks like or says it is? Well on eBay, only 5% of the Tiffany jewelry is real.

Tiffany, who was not so ecstatic about this, filed a lawsuit against eBay saying that eBay had aided the infringement of its trademark by not doing enough to yank fake Tiffany jewelry off of its site.

Bruce Rich of Weil said, "Tiffany is trying to shift its own obligation to police theintegrity of its brand on to a third party because it doesn't want to spend the money necessary to combat counterfeiting. Another motive for Tiffany's suit against eBay is that, as a retailer, eBay is a competitor in the secondary marketplace."eBay a law of the Supreme Court's 1982 decision of the Inwood v. Ives case, which says a third party is liable if it "intentionally induces another to infringed a trademark or if it continues to supply its product to one whom it knows or has reason to know is engaging in trademark infringement.

Legally though, eBay is not responsible for its hosted content, co-founder of Bromberg & Sunstein law firm, Bruce Sunstein explains,"It is not its role to ensure that the objects exchanged are genuine, unless platform managers are aware of or have been informed of fraud and know that the objects they list are counterfeit." Tiffany felt that eBay should monitor all of their hundred million listings which are always in circulation from 250 million registered users. However, eBay countered, "We believe that a brand owner is the only one that can truly and effectively police its own brand."

But why should they have to police their site? People have to realize that if something that is a major designer product is going for a starting bid for .99 that there's something wrong with it. Most likely it's fake, or someone dropped it in the toilet. You get what you pay for.

The Verdict:

"Significantly, Tiffany has not alleged, nor does the evidence support a conclusion, that all of the Tiffany merchandise sold through eBay is counterfeit. . . . [T]he doctrine of contributory trademark infringement should not be used to require defendants to refuse to provide a product or service to those who merely might infringe the trademark. . . . Were Tiffany to prevail on its argument that generalized statements of infringement were sufficient to impute knowledge to eBay of any and all infringing acts, Tiffany’s rights in its mark would dramatically expand, potentially stifling legitimate sales of Tiffany goods on eBay. . . ."