Hyundai Motor Co. won its appeal of a $34 million verdict that said South Korea’s largest automaker infringed a Texas company’s patent for computerizing the sale of car parts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday said Orion IP LLC’s patent was invalid and vacated the verdict stating that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict. Orion, a patent-licensing firm based in Longview, Texas, had sued 20 automakers, claiming infringement of a patent for a way to help a salesperson select auto parts without relying on catalogs or order forms.  The other auto companies settled before trial.  Hyundai argued that companies other than Orion had come up with the idea of electric parts catalogs in 1987, and the patented computer-assisted system a year later wasn’t different enough to be considered a new invention.

In one of the most closely watched trademark cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Thursday that eBay does not infringe on Tiffany’s trademarks even though the online auction site features plenty of counterfeit goods billed as being legitimately produced by the luxury jeweler.  The 45-page opinion notes that eBay does not deny its knowledge that Tiffany products sold on eBay were often counterfeit.  However; the court agreed with the lower court’s 2008 decision that sale of some counterfeit Tiffany goods on eBay does not constitute trademark infringements by eBay.  The court ruled that eBay takes the appropriate steps to combat sales of counterfeit and in order for Tiffany to win a false advertising claim, Tiffany will have to produce evidence that consumers were confused by the advertisements.

This recent case is major development in an international debate over how much eBay and other consumer resale cites should be required to do in order to police counterfeit sales.  The results of these trademark litigations have been mixed for eBay outside the U.S.  A French court ruled in 2008 that eBay had not done enough to stop counterfeit sales and ordered eBay to pay $63 million fine. Another French court six weeks ago ordered eBay to pay $275,000 to Louis Vuitton, however;  In Belgium, the court reached an opposite conclusion in favor of eBay.