Bose goes after people for selling counterfeit headphones on eBay, Craigslist

The Framingham company yesterday filed trademark-infringement lawsuits against more than 50 people and companies it charges are selling cheapo Chinese knock-offs of its premium headphones online - and against one guy it claims it found selling them at a Connecticut flea market after he signed an agreement to stop selling them.

In the suits, filed in US District Court in Boston, the company is seeking millions of dollars in damages.

The company alleges many of the people it's suing worked in concert, by giving each other fake recommendations on eBay in an attempt to make themselves look more reputable, and that the company has been watching them since 2007. Bose adds:

In the fall of 2007, Bose discovered that counterfeit Bose headphones were being sold from web sites originating in China. These products are nearly identical in appearance to genuine Bose goods, but are inferior in quality. Many people who purchase these items have no idea that they are getting a counterfeit product rather than the genuine article. ... Bose's investigation has also revealed that Defendants purchased the counterfeit products at highly discounted prices from questionable sources, such as anonymous sellers on
CraigsList or Internet web sites located in China. Accordingly, the Defendants either knew or acted in reckless disregard of circumstances, suggesting that the products they were selling were counterfeit, and their actions were therefore knowing and willful.

First Bose complaint (1.1M PDF file, has background trademark information)
Second Bose complaint (Same basic complaint against different people, without the trademark background).