eBay, Inc. v. Bidder’s Edge, Inc.
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
100 F. Supp. 2d 1058 (2000)
- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
Bidder’s Edge, Inc. (BE) (defendant) was an auction aggregation website that combined a number of auction websites into a single set of search results for its users. eBay, Inc. (plaintiff) was one of the auction websites that BE aggregated. BE used an automated computer program to search eBay’s online database up to 100,000 times per day. eBay entered into license agreements with a limited number of other auction aggregation websites, granting them access to eBay’s database under specific terms that eBay wrote into the agreements. BE and eBay attempted to reach a licensing agreement, but failed to do so. Accordingly, eBay notified BE on multiple occasions that it did not have permission to use eBay’s database. BE, however, continued to do so. eBay brought suit against BE for trespass to chattels, among other things.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Whyte, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 805,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.