Tabberone's Hall of Shame

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Burberry
Hall Of Shame Member
Burberry Plaid

Updated April 4, 2007 and April 9, 2008

Tabberone welcomes Burberry to the Hall Of Shame, and their less than fabulous legal counsel, Fabio Silva, by giving the five reasons why we believe they belong here:

Burberry terminates auctions and then either refuses to response to legitimate inquiries, or, as they state on their About Me Page, they will try to respond in two weeks (?? two weeks!!). At times in the past they did respond more effectively.
Burberry terminates auctions for licensed Burberry articles without first asking the seller the source of these items.
Burberry doesn't go after real counterfeiters even after they have been told of them.
Burberry terminates auctions for selling fabrics that are similar to the Burberry Trademark, using the old trademark cliche of "confusingly similar", yet they never really inquire as to the source of these fabric so they can go after the "real" infringers.
Burberry tries to extort compliance from "infringers" by claiming they could get monies from them through a court action.
Fabio Silva, who seems to be Burberry's counsel, has dropped the ball. We once actually thought there was hope for him but he's let his lawyerly instincts get in the way of reason. Burberry attempts to claim ownership of almost any plaid they want. However, a quick look at their web site on April 4, 2007, resulted in not one image of their "famous" plaid. Hmmmm.
Fabio and Burbrry came to our attention April 2, 2004, when we were contacted by a seller who had purchased fabric that allegedly mimicked the Burberry trademark. While we don't agree with Burberry that their plaid has gained secondary meaning as a trademark, we do agree that that pattern is a Burberry trademark. What we disagreed with was that Burberry, through their somewhat ineffective representative, Fabio Silva, seems to have failed to inquire and pursue the real infringer, the manufacturer of the fabric. They displayed no interest in that, preferring to punish the more innocent infringer, the unwitting end-user, by saying they weren't provided with adequate documentation. Burberry "claims" they do not sell fabric but there seems to be a lot of "Burberry" fabric out there. How did that happen?
At this time (April), Fabio had eBay include his email as contact information in the Why Ended email. A mere six months later he has had eBay not include it. Why, Fabio? Too many complaining emails? Did they interfere with your naps and golf? Instead, Fabio wants sellers to go to his eBay About Me Page and read the some-what incorrect chest-beating claims by Burberry about how they defend their trademarks. Burberry's claim that it "enjoys significant common law (unregistered) rights" is exaggerated. So is the "without written authorization" chestnut used by so many threatening lawyers. The wording and tone of the page is designed to put fear in your soul. Burberry doesn't define "Confusingly Similar" and we're guessing they have a very broad interpretation of what qualifies.
Fabio recently terminated three auctions claiming "parallel imports" violations. For those of you unfamiliar with parallel imports, we copied some excerpts from the law web site of Ladis & Parry that explain US and British Laws concerning parallel imports as they would apply to the terminated auctions. The items being offered were authentic Burberry scarves bought in England from a Burberry's store.
The three terminated auctions, with pictures, can be viewed here:

Auction #1
Auction #2
Auction #3

Note the attempt by the lister to furnish picture to show the tages and detail. These were genuine Burberry products and Burberry terminated the auctions. Shame on Burberry and their not so fabulous Fabio. Fabio doesn't produce; he cries. When confronted with the accusation that he shuts down eBay auctions while ignoring web sites that openly sell Burberry fakes, he whines, sob, that it isn't all that easy to shut down a web site. BULLSHIT, you two-faced little snot. All it takes is an affidavit from you to the provider. We think you are wimping out because you fear actually having to crack a law book and doing something LEGAL for a change.

Update April 4, 2007
Burberry's at it again. In March 2007, a paralegal at Burberry, Lori Sigismondo, terminated an auction, telling the seller the item was counterfeit. When the seller provided additional pictures, Burberry relented, saying the item was authentic. What? Burberry can't afford an intelligent paralegal? Hey, eBay! Isn't this the type of abuse you said you would not allow? Lori, get a job flipping burgers. Maybe you qualify to say, "Would you like fries with that?" without screwing up and hurting people.

Update April 9, 2008
We discovered the people at Scooter Seat Covers have a beef with Burberry as well. Someone needs to take Burberry to federal court to stop them from trademark misuse.

Rebuttals
In an effort to provide a balanced view, we make the following offer to anyone who feels they have been wrongly accused on this web site.
If you, or your company, have been referenced on these pages, and you would like the chance to post a rebuttal, we will post your rebuttal (provided it is in good taste) so others can read it. The rebuttal must be submitted in a format that can easily be converted into HTML. We reserve the right to alter the rebuttal to make it more readable. However, we will not alter the content (unless there is offensive material to be removed). We also reserve the right to comment on any rebuttal received. Emails protesting the content of this web site may be treated as rebuttals by us at our discretion.
We made this offer a very long time ago and as of September 2008, only AnimieHot.com, in our Hall Of Shame, and Charlotte Perman (Sevenarts in our Hall Of Shame) have chosen to submit a formal rebuttal.