By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Tiffany & Co. was dealt a legal blow on Thursday when a New York appeals court ruled that eBay, the online auction site, can continue selling knock-offs of their jewelry.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a decision stating that eBay is not committing trademark infringement by allowing its users to sell fake Tiffany items on its site, as long as the company does not have specific knowledge of the fraud.
"An online advertiser such as eBay need not cease its advertisements for a kind of goods only because it knows that not all of the goods are authentic. A disclaimer might suffice," Judge Robert Sack wrote in the decision, as quoted by the New York Post.
However, the court did hold that eBay would be violating that law if they advertised that the items being sold were authentic.
"[T]he law prohibits an advertisement that implies that all of the goods offered on a defendant's website are genuine when in fact, as here, a sizeable proportion of them are not, " the decision said, according to the Post.
This caveat may open the door for Tiffany to appeal the decision, claiming that eBay did advertise that the products in question were genuine.
Tiffany is considering an appeal to the Supreme Court, the Wall Street Journal reported.
