http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/B3FF686571FFD11F862574B10077FE75?OpenDocument
This is an article about copyright infringement where the court ruled in favor ($40 million) of the Mattel company, who are the creators of the popular Barbie dolls. MGA Entertainment, the creators of the Bratz dolls which are aimed at tweeners, has an ex-Mattel designer who was found to have come up with the Bratz idea while still working at Mattel.
I found it interesting that Mattel received quite an exhoribant amount in damages. Although it was shown that Mattel wanted the complete amount of profit that MGA had earned which was over $1 billion. So the damages were pretty steep, however they were not as much as they could have been. It is intriguing how they come up with a crazy amount of damage money. I suppose it is the nature of the entertainment business.
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3 comments:
As an entrepreneur I am always trying to come up with ideas that will sell so this one really worries me. I wonder how the court established that the ex-Mattel employee came up with the idea while still working at Mattel. If he had come up with the idea after he started working for MGA would Mattel have lost the copyright infringement case? Can a court really know with certainty when an idea is born? And even if they do, couldn't it be argued that even though the ex-employee thought of the idea at Mattel, that creating the prototype (if that wasn't done at Mattel) was the real creation of the idea and that was after he went to MGA?
I wonder if he filed for a patent or something while employed by Mattel. That would establish when he came up with the concept.
I am in favor of the Bratz dolls simply because they explore diversity among their consumers. I did not make the assocation of Bratz dolls with Barbie because a typical "Barbie" trademark in my opinion is paler skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Barbies were not brought in my household as a child growing up but the Bratz collections were purchased from me as gifts to my nieces. It seemed they identifed with these dolls more. The lawsuit in my opinion does and does not have merit. Am I to understand that one should ignore their creative senses when working for such corportations in fear that if they once left and pursued that creative idea, it can be linked to their previous employment? There is a very fine line there and I just don't see it.
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