October 2010
BNA International
By Margaret A. Esquenet
This article, by Finnegan attorney Margaret Esquenet, discusses the suit between rival toy doll makers Mattel Inc. and MGA Entertainment, Inc. over the BRATZ toy doll line, a concept created by a former Mattel employee, Carter Bryant, who took the designs to MGA. The article describes how the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Mattel was wrongly granted ownership of the BRATZ trademark portfolio and related copyrights in the initial District Court trial and vacated a U.S. $10 million damages award. Esquenet discusses the details surrounding the Ninth Circuit Court’s rejection of the District Court’s analysis of Bryant’s employment contract and how that decision shows the need to ensure that such contracts are tailored to cover the full scope of an employer’s expectations regarding an employee’s work product. She also notes that the opinion details the difference between protectable expression and unprotectable ideas, likely to be cited in cases where there are copycat goods at issue.
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