Redbubble, an online marketplace selling third-party merchandise has been ordered by an Australian court to pay the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club $78,250 in damages for a trademark violation.
The store was held liable for selling items depicting the club’s trademark protected logo without any permission or licenses, in a second ruling against Redbubble in three years. A previous suit was instituted by Hells Angels in 2019 where Redbubble had to pay $5,000 in damages.
A few accounts on the site were selling the impugned merchandise, the website was however not able to flag the products as they were being sold as “Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs” merchandise. These accounts were not located on Australia and have since been terminated. The website was not able to flag the products as the company uses keyword-based filtering to pick up on possible intellectual property violations.
The company avers that they proactively moderate sale uploads, particularly including those related to the Hells Angels since the 2019 decision. Despite the company’s efforts the trademark officer of Hells Angels was able to buy a number of different products boasting the trademarked logo and also found eleven item listings.
The court held that the filtering process employed by Redbubble is flawed and inadequate, even the listings that had been suspended and sent to an outsourced team in Jamaica for manual review were sent back with the same errors. The flaw lies in the use of keyword-based flagging, the company has however been working on image-based checking system.
The court did not award damages based on sales as the only people who bought the items in question were those from the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in order to determine if the items would still be sold and delivered. The club was awarded $8,250 in damages and $70,000 in additional damages.