Legal News

In Barbie and Bratz Case, Is the Chronology the Key?

By Dan Slater

Heading into the Barbie vs. Bratz copyright trial, it had been assumed that the legal battleground would be a timeline of events: Was Carter Bryant, the designer of the pouty-lipped Bratz doll, still an employee of Mattel when dreamed up the now-$500 million per year franchise owned by MGA?

But according to Isaac Larian, the founder of closely-held MGA, that factual dispute doesn’t pose a problem for his company. On Friday, Larian testified that even if Bryant “was working on [Bratz] or refining them while he was at Mattel, I don’t see a problem.” Still, he said, it was his understanding that the original idea for the doll came to Bryant in 1998 when he was not employed in the toy industry. Here’s the story from the WSJ’s Nicholas Casey, and here’s more on the trial from the L.A. Times.

Mattel, represented by Quinn Emanuel’s John Quinn, accuses MGA of essentially stealing the idea for Bratz dolls, and is trying to seize ownership of the Bratz line. MGA, rep’d by Skadden’s Tom Nolan, denies wrongdoing, and accuses Mattel in a separate suit of copying Bratz.

On Thursday, reports the WSJ, Larian argued that MGA had made no deliberate effort to siphon off doll designers working at Mattel and often simply hired employees laid off from the toy giant. Mattel introduced a November 1999 email, however, where he appeared to contradict this: “Why are we waiting for a layoff?” he asked his employees. “We should aggressively recruit from inside Mattel.”

According to the LAT, on Thursday lawyers for MGA submitted a letter to the court that, they said, was received by MGA on Wednesday. The letter reportedly warned Larian that Mattel executives “have collaborated to spy on you and your family at your home and your children’s school.” Judge Stephen Larson decided to seal the letter and didn’t discuss its content in court.

The trial continues this week with the testimony of Mattel CEO Bob Eckert.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 09, 2008 (boomark / email).