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MONDAY, 20 JULY 2009
Frankfurt court enforces "impressum" measures against ISPs
 Class 46 is indebted to Andreas Lubberger (Lubberger Lehment, Berlin) for providing information concerning an action brought by Coty Prestige Lancaster Group GmbH against kijiji.de internet sale site owners Marktplaats BV and Kijiji GmbH before the Frankfurt District Court. This decision addresses the liability of internet service providers in respect of both "precautionary" and "follow up" measures which ISPs might possibly have to observe for compliance with so-called "impressum" obligations (Andreas explains: the "impressum" is a short term which is used in Germany to indicate the set of information which is to be provided by every commercial offerer of goods for sale on the internet under Article 6 of the E-Commerce Directive). The first part of Article 6 of that Directive states, in relevant part:
"Information to be provided
In addition to other information requirements established by Community law, Member States shall ensure that commercial communications which are part of, or constitute, an information society service comply at least with the following conditions:
... (b) the natural or legal person on whose behalf the commercial communication is made shall be clearly identifiable; ". Adds Andreas, "We consider the illegal "pseudonymity" of professional dealers a major incentive for trade mark infringers to chose eBay as their preferred sales channel and thus aim to enforce this obligation on behalf of Coty and others". You can read the full text of this decision here. Class 46 understands that (i) Kijiji has filed a writ for an appeal but has not yet substantiated its reasons and that (ii) the Court of Appeal in Frankfurt (the Higher Regional Court) has already indicated in an previous case that it shares the approach of the District Court, which suggests that it is highly unlikely that the appeal will succeed.
Posted by: Jeremy Phillips @ 10.45
Tags: duty to provide details of sellers, Germany, online sales, |
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