Barbie Doll In Legal Fight With Bratz Girls
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
MIAMI — She once reigned supreme as the queen of the toy stores. Now, Barbie has declared handbags-at-dawn against a posse of new dolls who may be threatening her position as the world’s favorite.
Barbie’s maker, Mattel, has begun a legal catfight with her archrivals, Bratz, a series of hip-hop-loving dolls with a racy fashion sense and streetwise attitude.
In a 58-page lawsuit, Mattel accuses its closest competitor, MGA Entertainment, of stealing its “intellectual infrastructure,” including company secrets, business plans, and 25 members of staff, and using it to build the Bratz empire, worth $500 million a year.
Credit for the Bratz girls rightfully belongs to Barbie, Mattel suggests. “MGA’s rapid growth was not organic, but rather was based upon its theft of Bratz,” the lawsuit alleges. “Emboldened by the success of its illegal conduct, MGA has repeated — even expanded — its pattern of theft on numerous occasions.”
Mattel claims it owns the rights to Bratz because they were conceived by one of its own designers who then defected to MGA in 2000. It is suing the designer and has now expanded its complaint to include MGA and its chief executive, Isaac Larian, accusing them of copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and racketeering. All parties are contesting the lawsuit, which was filed in California.
“It’s more than sour grapes. It’s an absolute pure act of desperation. Mattel lives in a fantasy land. They don’t own Bratz, and they know it. It’s all fabricated paranoia from a company that’s lost its leadership,” Mr. Larian said.
MGA also claims that Mattel copied some of Bratz’s beauty secrets and funky fashion to jazz up her looks and create a new line of dolls, known as My Scene.
MGA claims in court papers that Mattel resorted to “serial copycatting” and used intimidation, coercion, and threats against distributors and retailers to try to stifle Bratz’s success.
“Bratz challenged Barbie’s half-century domination of the fashion-doll market like nothing ever before had been able to do,” MGA’s defense states. “Instead of fairly competing, Mattel waged war using a wide array of tortuous, unfair, and anti-competitive practices.”
In 2001, Barbie’s sales were challenged by the arrival of the multiethnic Bratz. With their penchant for heavy make-up, risqué fashion, plumped-up lips, and cleavage-baring, belly-showing outfits, they made 47-year-old Barbie seem demure.