MGA Claims Mattel Acted Like Bratz In Secretly Spying On MGA Plans

from the on-the-counteroffensive dept

Thu, Aug 19th 2010 8:41pm — Mike Masnick

It looks like toymaker MGA has decided that if the momentum is turning in its ongoing legal fight with competitor Mattel, it might as well go all in. As you may recall, Mattel had sued MGA over its (extraordinarily successful) Bratz lines of dolls, because the designer who came up with the concept had done so while working at Mattel. This resulted in an amazingly broad ruling against MGA that required it to basically turn over everything having to do with Bratz dolls, including future plans, to Mattel. This made no sense. If Mattel was to get the rights to anything from MGA, it should have only been the original expression if they were actually produced under the Mattel employment contract (a point of dispute). Thankfully, the appeals court realized what a terrible ruling this was, and rejected most of it.

With momentum moving to MGA, the company has now filed headline-grabbing counterclaims against Mattel, concerning revelations, supposedly unearthed during depositions for the case, of widespread and potentially illegal corporate espionage done by Mattel on MGA and many other toy companies, including setting up fake personas so that people working for Mattel could get into toy showcases from competitors that were closely guarded secrets.

While it does make for a good story, it's not entirely clear what this really has to do with the case at hand. Corporate espionage happens all the time, as competitors try to get a leg up on one another. It seems like a bit of a tangent for MGA to even bother to bring this up now. Why not just focus on the key issue of retaining the rights to the lucrative Bratz dolls?

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Filed Under: dolls, espionage
Companies: mattel, mga

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2010 @ 9:14pm

It is one thing to use publicl avaiable information to figure out what a competitor is up to. It is quite another to infiltrate a competitor's organization to do so.

Thus, it is not in my view unreasonable for MGA to file a new cause of action for what it alleges Mattel has done.
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- BearGriz72 (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 9:22pm
  
  Re:
  Counterclaim != A new cause of action
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 11:40pm
  
  Re:
  It is one thing to use publicl avaiable information to figure out what a competitor is up to. It is quite another to infiltrate a competitor's organization to do so.
  
  It's not clear that they "infiltrated" the organization. They went to toy showcase events under false pretenses... which is not quite the same thing.
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Michael Weston, 19 Aug 2010 @ 9:39pm

I disagree with author ...
Mike I disagree,

I think it is a good strategy by MGA ...
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Designerfx (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 9:50pm

corporate espionage
the issue is not that the espionage occurs, but more questions about the legality of how it is done.

a great majority of the time corporate espionage is hardly legal by any stretch, and represents both a: a liability in terms of actual money, but also as far as a company's reputation.

example: HP pretexting.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Aug 2010 @ 2:18am
  
  Re: corporate espionage
  Which has exactly what to do with the Bratz dolls and current litigation?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Aug 2010 @ 5:10am

We bought my daughter a Barbie doll for Christmas once, but my son beat it to death against the side of the garage before the day was done. Actually I think that's why she asked for it, because she laughed the whole time he beat on it.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Aug 2010 @ 2:57pm
  
  Re:
  Jesus Christ, are you raising psychopaths?
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- Anonymous Coward, 24 Jan 2011 @ 4:38pm
  
  Re:
  olk
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Gene Cavanaugh, 20 Aug 2010 @ 6:18pm

"The best defense is a good offense"
From Wikipedia;"The adage has also been applied in the intellectual property realm, in reference to patent trolls",
and, I might add, generally.
Any attorney who does not enthusiastically represent his/her client in any reasonable (and some would say beyond that) should give up the profession.
Of course, the client controls; but any worthwhile attorney will advise a counteroffensive.
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hongjingjing (profile), 22 Aug 2010 @ 7:25pm

But
It is one thing to use publicl avaiable information to figure out what a competitor is up to. It is quite another to infiltrate a competitor's organization to do so.ghd straighteners
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