While it is essential to protect intellectual property, intellectual property rights should not be misused in an anticompetitive manner that reduces the flow of e-commerce goods and inhibits a robust internet economy. The resale of legitimate goods from one country to another through the Internet should be allowed.
More specifically, intellectual property regimes should incorporate the key principle of international trademark exhaustion instead of a “regional exhaustion” regime, used to restrict the resale of goods outside a particular area, such that a legally purchased goods may be resold anywhere without obtaining any additional permissions from the trademark holder.
The popularity of e-commerce for clothes, textbooks, watches, jewelry and even car parts from Asia illustrates that consumers want and expect to buy certain goods online at a great value. eBay strongly encourages regulators and governments in Asia to recognize the need for an international trademark exhaustion regime.
