[sandworm101]

But see (2)

(2) Any entrusting of possession of goods to a merchant who deals in goods of that kind gives him power to transfer all rights of the entruster to a buyer in ordinary course of business

We need to know more about how the seller acquired the goods. Often such ebay sales are by people who had legitimate possession, just not any right to sell them. This is why experimental and demo electronics aren't normally investigated as stolen goods. Nobody should be selling them, nobody had the right to sell them, but a great many merchants do legitimately possess them.

[gamblor956]

We need know nothing about the person selling the stuff on ebay. It's irrelevant how the ebay merchant got the goods, what matters is how the manufacturer gave up the goods.

If it was theft--easy case. Stolen property is not covered by UCC. (It's the Uniform Code of Contracts, so there must be a chain of contracts connecting the property from the manufacturer to the innocent buyer for the UCC to apply.)

If it was theft by fraud--now we're talking. This could mean, for example, that the eBay merchant ordered the goods from the manufacturer but then never paid, or lied about who they were, or some other such misrepresentation or fraud or crime. In this case, there's a chain of contracts, so an innocent buyer from the eBay merchant would be protected by the UCC. (Note that if the eBay merchant knowingly does not pay, it could be both theft or theft by fraud depending on the jurisdiction and specific circumstances.)