13Jan
2017
2017
The Platform of Patent Infringement?
A little over a year ago, Judge Martinez of the Western District of Washington adopted an advisory jury verdict finding that Amazon.com Inc. did not “offer to sell” several third party pillowcases available for purchase through Amazon.com which allegedly infringed certain design patents. As is often the case with legal questions, the issue was just re-argued on appeal before a panel of the Federal Circuit, with the understandably-interested eBay chiming in via an amicus brief. (Milo & Gabby LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc.)
The issue may be worth watching in the context of the broader question of Amazon’s ability to answer (or not) to claims of intellectual property infringement, by offering a forum for third party sellers to offer products that may violate the copyrights, trademarks, or patents of others. As anyone who has previously tangled with Amazon’s “take down” procedures in the past likely knows, the existing procedures are an imperfect fix to an oftentimes ubiquitous problem. It will be interesting to see if Milo & Gabby impacts Amazon’s procedures going forward, by threatening further exposure to claims of intellectual property infringement.
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