This month's article is contributed by Ivy Attenborough, a 1L at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law. Furby Few toys have captured the attention of millions for years after their release as the Furby. Created by a former Mattel designer David Hampton, his former coworker Caleb Chung, and marketing executive and hobbyist inventor Richard C. Levy, the toy was inspired by a digital version of an interactive pet called a Tamagotchi. From their release in 1998, they were an instant hit--40 million were sold within three years. At a price of $35, they reached at least $1 billion in sales by 2000. Moreover, over $60 million in sales were generated in the first year of their release—in the final two months of 1998. The origin of Furby’s as an iconic toy is even more impressive when viewed in light of its patent history. Comprised of 10 claims relating to interactivity, movement, and mannerisms, U.S. Patent No. 6,149,490 was filed just ten days before its first Christmas for sale and later assigned to Hasbro, Inc. The patent covers both the toy’s internal mechanisms and its outer shell, communication style, and communicative devices. A suit was brought against Hasbor, inc. for its Furby toy infringing five patented claims. However, the court in Dialware Commun., LLC v. Hasbro, Inc. stated that all five of the patents covered “abstract ideas of communication” with no inventive concept required by the two-part Alice Standard. As a result, the court invalidated the five claims at issue. The Furby patent reached its twenty-year expiration date in 2018. Barbie Millions of young girls owned both Barbies and Bratz, owned by Mattel and MGA Entertainment, respectively. The Barbie doll, U.S. Patent No. 3,009,284, came out in 1959; Bratz was released in 2001. However, both companies had many issues and serious accusations of former employees bringing their ideas, created in the workplace and underemployment, to another new employer. The legal battle between Mattel and MGA began with a victory by the owners of Barbie. In Bryant v. Mattel, Inc., the inventor of Bratz, Carter Bryant, and his employer, MGA Entertainment, were permanently enjoined from producing their dolls as they were found to infringe on the Barbie patent and copyrights. Moreover, they were ordered to recall and refund the purchase of every Bratz doll sold--$1 billion by 2003 alone—as well as turn over the IP of the Bratz doll to Mattel; $10 million in damages to Mattel were also awarded. Mattel, Inc. v. MGA Ent., Inc. vacated the prior judgment; in fact, the Ninth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion. The district court found that MGA Entertainment had used illegitimate business practices and infringing use of intellectual property, but the circuit found that Mattel was the party involved in trade secret theft. Not only did the circuit court vacate the award of damages and injunction from the first suit, but it awarded MGA Entertainment over $300 million in damages, later reduced to about half. The result of the MGA Entertainment win was solidified when a rehearing was denied in October of 2010, as the result of a 3-year statute of limitation for trade secrets. Many realms of IP intersect in these massive cases because trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and patents were all potentially at stake.
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