There are Bratz... and there are Baby Bratz. Who exactly are they marketing them to?
Posted on 12/04/2008 5:52:15 AM PST by IronKros
LOS ANGELES — 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
There are Bratz... and there are Baby Bratz. Who exactly are they marketing them to?
Make that’s because her face was based on a a fish.
To put it nicely, "Single, stay-at-home moms who are not financially secure."
Thank you.
Shouldn’t they come with tiny coke spoons on that chain?
You completely disagree that a court should be able order a company from violating the copyrights and patents of another company?
The dolls were created by a Mattel employee while he worked at Mattel. Therefore it was a work product that belonged to Mattel and MGA had no right to produce them.
Only for a month or so, that should give most people time to come to their senses and realize that they aren't worth squat and putting food on the table during the "Obama Depression" will be more important. ... Then again there are a bunch of stupid people in the world.
As explained in the story, it’s called breach of contract.
Workers in China at the Bratz factory react to the news.
If you only read the excerpt and not the article, there is definitely more to the case than what has been reported.
It is a copyright infringement case, and if you are making and selling something that is found to violate someone else's trademark or copyright you can bet your bottom dollar the government will step in and regulate that (and the federal government has a constitutional authority to do so -- it is one of the few constitutional authorities it has.)
US Constitution, Article I, Section 8
Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; ...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;...
The article was poorly written. The problem was not very well explained.
The judge made the ruling after a jury found that the creator of Bratz had developed them while working for Mattel and then took the idea to MGA, which marketed the dolls.
Perhaps. But from the article, this is the crux of the story:
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.The same jury later awarded Mattel $10 million for copyright infringement and $90 million for breach of contract after a lengthy trial stemming from Mattel's 2004 lawsuit ended in August.
That is a good idea if you never plan to work for a company involved in development and production of new technologies or consumer goods. If you go to work for any major manufacturer or product development company, an intellectual property agreement will be one of the documents you must sign if you want them to pay you for working there.
If they want you, they will amend the agreement. If not, then you’re not an employee, you’re a slave. That explains the quality of a lot of television - slave labor at its finest. What really puzzles me is how they got this under copyright law. It’s almost unenforceable. Trademark is much better protection. I’m wondering how Mattel managed to have this as a copyright case. Perhaps they made a little goof in their agreements. Considering the money at stake, I’d expect an appeal, and I’d expect Mattel to lose the appeal rather broadly.
The contract is overreaching. I’ve seen corporations that required a release from the hiring contract to even allow an employee to work on any computer software at home/off hours (say a children’s game where your day job is testing hardware designs).
The corporations know that their contracts aren’t always binding, but they will leave it up to your legal team to challenge each one of them.
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