2003

Artist’s subject is the Barbie Doll (such as the photo depicting Barbie in a blender).  Mattel sues under trademark, copyright, trade dress, etc.  Ninth Circuit ruled against Mattel on everything in this must-read decision.

Aside: Half of defendant’s revenues appear to come from sham purchases from Mattel’s investigators.

Mattel v. Walking Mountain Productions et. al.

In this important decision, 1-800-Contacts v. WhenU and Vision Direct, the Southern District of New York, unlike previous courts, has enjoined WhenU’s use of pop-up/under ads.

Aside: When Wells-Fargo sued WhenU (and lost) it was stung by the fact that a related company of Wells-Fargo allegedly used the WhenU service.  Here, it appears that

From an article on Internet context-sensitive advertising in today’s NY Times (p. C 6):

One embarrassing example was the placement of ads by luggage stores on a Web page for a news article about a murderer who carried away his victims in a suitcase.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in the U.S. as of the year 2000, 25 girls were named Infiniti, 269 were named Chanel, 298 were named Armani, 353 were named Lexus.  22 boys were named Cartier and 273 were named Armani (one of the androgynous names, like Chris).

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A German toy company, Greiner and Hausser, alleges that Mattel’s BARBIE doll is based on its BILD-LILLI doll (pictured.  More pictures, including one where it resembles a disheveled Marlene Dietrich, here).  The German company litigated and settled with Mattel 40 years ago, and has brought a new action claiming royalties on every Barbie

This discussion of how the Dot Pro registry has pushed back its go-live date illustrates that registries should perhaps not be allowed to collect fees for sunrise registrations before the registry goes live.

In a somewhat analogous situation, NSI collected (to the best of my knowledge) substantial fees for “internationalized” domain names in October of

IPKat on Eminem filing suit seeking to enjoin a previous recording of his of which he is ashamed.

Singer Michael Bolton sues Weil Gotshal, alleging conflict of itnerest in its reprentation of him and his music publisher’s insurer, in defending against a copyright infringement suit brought against him by the Isley Borthers concerning Bolton’s song, “Love Is A Wonderful Thing.”  Via NY Lawyer.

NY State Code of Professional Responsibility here.