A man who stopped a business selling children’s quad bikes on eBay cannot continue to do so, the High Court has ruled. Dr. Colin Campbell claimed that children’s bikes sold on eBay violated his design rights, and had sales ended under eBay’s VeRO programme. But seller Quads4Kids counterclaimed against Dr. Campbell under the Community Design Regulations 2005, which stop those claiming to be rights holders from making threats that they cannot back up with legal action.
The Judge wrote “I consider that unsupported and unchallengeable allegations of infringement of registered rights of this description are potentially an exceedingly damaging abuse of registered rights”. He also gave judgement quickly so that the bikes could be back on sale on eBay in the run up to Christmas. Lets hope that a few of those who use VeRO to assert rights they do not have are put off by this judgement.
