Posted on 12/04/2008 12:26:09 PM PST by lewisglad
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The rowdy Bratz dolls have been evicted. Barbie has regained control of the dollhouse.
Toy giant Mattel Inc., after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.
"It's a pretty sweeping victory," Mattel attorney Michael Zeller said. "They have no right to use Bratz for any goods or services at all."
U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson rocked the toy industry with his order that MGA must immediately stop manufacturing Bratz. He allowed MGA to wait until the holiday season ends to remove the toys from store shelves.
The decision was a stunning defeat for MGA, which exploded onto the tween scene in 2001 with the edgy dolls and made hundreds of millions in profits, giving Mattel's more classic doll-diva Barbie a run for her money.
MGA planned to immediately appeal the judge's injunction, Chief Executive Isaac Larian said in a written statement late Wednesday.
Larian said the company also intended to ask that the order be stayed until the appeals process is over, so that "we can maintain the over 1,500 people that MGA employs, and continue to give our consumers a product they desire."
The ruling, issued in federal court in Riverside, followed a jury's finding that Bratz designer Carter Bryant developed the concept for the dolls while working for Mattel.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Bratz are banned in this house. My hubby calls them Slutz, Hookerz, or Stripperz, and our oldest calls them Skankz.
So, anybody that has ever worked for Mattel cannot conceive of, design or produce a doll of any kind?.............
Not even close to a Barbie.
So, only Mattel can make dolls now?
The ruling, issued in federal court in Riverside, followed a jury's finding that Bratz designer Carter Bryant developed the concept for the dolls while working for Mattel.
Now it makes sense.
Agreed. Those SLutz dolls are disgusting and wrong for girls to play with, and wrong for boys to consider that’s what a girl is.
Read much?
Bryant created the concept while *working for* Mattel, not after.
To the list of Skankz and Slutz, we like to call them Hoez and Inbredz...
Yep. A simple case of intellectual property rights.
Yep, I can’t imagine any responsible parent giving their daughter a skank doll as a toy.
Luckily my daugther isn’t old enough to discover Bratz yet. But I already planned on banning them. Vile things they are.
If they paid him to design for Mattel and then he goes to MGA with a product he developed at Mattel, the “design” he sold them was not his own, it was the property of Mattel, because they paid him for it.
I am a scientist. I own no rights to anything I develop or discover while working for my company. Anything I do BELONGS to the company that pays me for my research.
Lots of employment contracts have no-compete clauses.
Almost all of them have clauses that state that all work created by the employee while working for the company is the property of the company.
If this guy did the design for these dolls on Mattel’s time, then the copyright belongs to Mattel. Mattel can do what they want with them.
As for my house, Bratz are never allowed in the front door. My daughter knows better than to ask.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
Long live Barbie.
I call them Ho bag Barbies.
Mattel's claim, which the jury accepted, was that he developed the Bratz dolls while still working at Mattel, and then took them to MGA when he changed jobs.
women aren’t things?
OMG, they have all had their noses surgically removed!!!
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