eBay 2013 Annual Report Download - page 61

In September 2012, the Seoul High Court announced its decision upholding the Seoul Central District Court's January 2010 decision for three
cases involving 55 plaintiffs (who did not appeal to the Korea Supreme Court). During 2013, the Seoul High Court upheld the Seoul Central
District Court's January 2010 ruling in another 18 cases involving 33,795 plaintiffs. The Seoul High Court's decision in 10 of these 18 cases has
been appealed by 33,215 plaintiffs to the Korea Supreme Court, and there was no appeal in the eighty other cases. Currently, the Korea Supreme
Court is reviewing a total of 11 cases with 33,218 plaintiffs, including one case appealed from the Daegu High Court. In January 2013, the Seoul
Western District Court ruled in favor of IAC with respect to two cases filed by 2,291 plaintiffs by following the Seoul Central District Court's
January 2010 ruling, and 2,284 plaintiffs proceeded to appeal the January 2013 decision of the Seoul Western District Court to the Seoul High
Court. We expect decisions in these cases in late 2014.
General Matters
Other third parties have from time to time claimed, and others may claim in the future, that we have infringed their intellectual property
rights. We are subject to patent disputes, and expect that we will increasingly be subject to additional patent infringement claims involving
various aspects of our Marketplaces, Payments and Enterprise (formerly known as GSI) businesses as our services continue to expand in scope
and complexity. Such claims may be brought directly against our companies and/or against our customers (who may be entitled to contractual
indemnification under their contracts with us), and we are subject to increased exposure to such claims as a result of our recent acquisitions,
particularly in cases where we are entering into new businesses in connection with such acquisitions. We have in the past been forced to litigate
such claims. We may also become more vulnerable to third-party claims as laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Lanham Act
and the Communications Decency Act are interpreted by the courts, and as we expand the scope of our business (both in terms of the range of
products and services that we offer and our geographical operations) and become subject to laws in jurisdictions where the underlying laws with
respect to the potential liability of online intermediaries like ourselves are either unclear or less favorable. We believe that additional lawsuits
alleging that we have violated patent, copyright or trademark laws will be filed against us. Intellectual property claims, whether meritorious or
not, are time consuming and costly to defend and resolve, could require expensive changes in our methods of doing business, or could require us
to enter into costly royalty or licensing agreements on unfavorable terms.
From time to time, we are involved in other disputes or regulatory inquiries that arise in the ordinary course of business, including suits by
our users (individually or as class actions) alleging, among other things, improper disclosure of our prices, rules or policies, that our prices, rules,
policies or customer/user agreements violate applicable law, or that we have not acted in conformity with such prices, rules, policies or
agreements. The number and significance of these disputes and inquiries are increasing as our company has grown larger, our businesses have
expanded in scope (both in terms of the range of products and services that we offer and our geographical operations) and our products and
services have increased in complexity. Any claims or regulatory actions against us, whether meritorious or not, could be time consuming, result
in costly litigation, damage awards (including statutory damages for certain causes of action in certain jurisdictions), injunctive relief or
increased costs of doing business through adverse judgment or settlement, require us to change our business practices in expensive ways, require
significant amounts of management time, result in the diversion of significant operational resources or otherwise harm our business.
ITEM 4: MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not applicable
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