It seemed inevitable that the two toy titans would clash. No, I don’t mean Superman and Batman, but Barbie and those annoying Bratz! And, millions of hard earned consumer dollars are at stake.
I just heard of this doll catfight recently, but the trial has been going on for about a month now. Mattel Inc. has brought an infringement case against Bratz manufacturers MGA Entertainment Inc. Mattel claimed that 39 year old Bratz creator, Carter Bryant, created the Bratz dolls and name while still working for them as a Barbie designer. Mattel brought out the big guns to prove their case – they sought forensic analysis of the early sketches of the Bratz dolls and even hired a private eye to follow one of the executives it suspected of working with MGA.
Mattel won that case as a federal jury of nine found last month that Bryant did created the dolls while still employed at Mattel. They also found MGA’s chief executive, Isaac Larian guilty of “conversion” – that translates into industrial theft.
Deliberations begin today as the jury will need to decide what, if any, damages Mattel deserves. Mattel is asking for a lot! Attorney John Quinn told the jury in closing arguments that MGA owed Mattel at least $1 billion for the Bratz profits and that Larian himself owed nearly $800 million for his involvement. It seems the jury has to decide if the original drawings, apparently done while Bryant was still at Mattel, match the first four Bratz dolls released. Quinn just might have a good case as he was able to produce early Bratz doll drawings and the first Bratz dolls that all had the same outfits and similar backpacks. He even went to far as to point out the same mole!
MGA attorneys are trying to do whatever damage control they can. They say that MGA only owes Mattel about $30 million (only!) because the Bratz doll line was built with the additions of other characters, branding, and packaging, all of which had nothing to do with the original sketches. Attorney Thomas Nolan says that without those very important changes, Bratz would have been a bust. The four original Bratz dolls in question only brought in $81 million in revenue.
Still, MGA has made approximately $778 million total on the Bratz dolls. Time will tell how much Barbie gets from the Bratz. Personally, I am glad I have a boy and not a girl so I don’t have to tell her she cannot have any of those hootchie looking little dolls.