Firm changes its name at eBay's request.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

Use the eBay online auction system all you like, but don't name your business after it.

That's the message from eBay to a new Eugene-based firm that helps customers sell goods via the San Jose-based online auction giant.

At eBay's request, the local company, wedoebay4u.com, has changed its name and now goes by wedoauctions4u.com.

The Eugene company helps clients sell jewelry, tools, antiques and other items on eBay for a 28 percent commission.

After being contacted earlier this week by eBay about possible trademark infringement, Abe Kossol, co-owner of the local eBay brokerage, said he quickly changed his business name. He didn't want to fight eBay.

"They're just too big for us," he said.

"I'm trying to start businesses, not end businesses," added Kossol, who with partner Terry Alberts founded his eBay brokerage firm in west Eugene.

Kossol said he received a friendly e-mail Monday from "Edith" (no last name) in the legal department of San Jose-based eBay. She informed Kossol that the use of eBay in his company's Internet domain name "infringes and dilutes the famous eBay trademark" and thus violates federal law.

"Infringement occurs when a third party's use of a company's trademark (or a confusingly similar variation thereof) is likely to confuse consumers as to the affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement of the third party's services," Edith wrote. "Trademark dilution occurs when a third party's use of a variation of a company's trademark is likely to lessen the distinctiveness of the company's famous trademark."

Trademark disputes are common in business. For example, residents in Bandon in Coos County are abuzz because the Bandon Cheese Co. recently contacted a dozen firms that use Bandon in their name and claimed that infringed on the cheese firm's trademark.

Despite the glitch over the name of Kossol's company, business there is picking up, he said.

Kossol and Alberts, former executives at Rosen Products LLC, a Eugene maker of flat-panel display screens, got started using eBay to liquidate Rosen's electronics inventory. Rosen shut down in September 2002.

Before its recent push to sign on individual customers, wedoauctions4u.com had about 20 auctions of machinery and equipment going at any one time, Kossol said. Now, with the wide range of individual customers selling jewelry, art work, furs, silver and collectibles, the company has about 60 auctions going at once.

"This is becoming so much fun," Kossol said.

Wedoauctions4u.com recently sold a 130-piece silverware set, he said. It is listing a $30,000 diamond ring, a mink coat, a collection of 5,000 baseball cards, stained glass and other art work.

Kossol said he's also been approached to auction a Sammy Davis Jr. dance suit and a basketball autographed by Wilt Chamberlin.