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Giants Sign Memorandum of Understanding

The development of e-commerce forces trademark giants to seek for options to prevent trademark abuses and counterfeit goods. The Memorandum of Understanding, which was signed in Brussels on May 04, 2011 and will enable the signatories to better enforce their rights for sales of goods over the internet, involves e-commerce giants such as e-bay, Amazon and other well-known marks such as Lacoste, Adidas, Burberry. The main goal of Memorandum of Understanding is to establish a code of practice in the fight against the sale of counterfeit goods over the internet. The Memorandum of Understanding concerns mostly counterfeit and pirated goods and leaves parallel imports of goods, grey marketing, license disputes, and issues regarding the exhaustion of rights out of its scope. Although it is not legally binding, the Memorandum of Understanding contains such measures as Notice and Take Down, which will give opportunity to right owner notice Internet platform of abuse or counterfeit and take it down from the platform if found accurate, and proactive and preventive measures such technical or procedural procedures to response to attempts to sell counterfeit goods over and internet platform. The Memorandum of Understanding can be reached at http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/iprenforcement/docs/memorandum_04052011_en.pdf (Last visit: 05 May 2011)