eBay sued the owner of the CoinBay.biz website for trademark infringement and unfair competition on December 5, 2007, in US District Court in the Northern District of California.
The complaint alleges that the CoinBay.biz website name, logo and its "Buy Now" feature infringes on eBay's copyright. eBay asked for injunctive relief enjoining the defendant from using the name and marks; cancellation of the coinbay.biz domain name registration; and treble damages and legal expenses.
On December 20, Judge Breyer accepted the parties's filing for a stipulation for final judgement. According to the settlement, the defendant, Bob Martino, agreed to change the name of his website to CoinDay and to cease the use of the Buy Now logo and names and marks to which eBay had objected. eBay has agreed to allow Martino to use the URL CoinBay.biz to redirect users to CoinDay.com until January 14, 2008. Each party will bear its own legal fees under the settlement terms.
The coinbay.biz URL now resolves to http://www.coinday.com/index.php and the feature that allows shoppers to buy an item immediately is called "Purchase Now." Site statistics posted on the CoinDay.com home page says there are 2,223 live users and 1,388 registered users.
Over the years, eBay has forced other companies to change their names and URLs through threats of legal action. BayPal.com changed its name to inkFrog.com; BrickBay.com changed its name to BrickLink.com; BidBay.com changed its name to AuctionDiner.com; and AlternaBay changed its name to AlternaBid.com.
The owner of the PerfumeBay.com website has been fighting eBay's trademark lawsuit for years. In November, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling in September 2005 against Perfumebay.com and Perfume-bay.com (http://tinyurl.com/2eers4 and http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m12/i09/s01).
