In December 2009 Art Attacks Inc sued MGA entertainment for use of the Bratz trademark.
The full case file can be read here.
Background[]
Art Attacks Inc was a small art business founded in 1993 by Jo Ann Mauck. They sold custom made clothing. designs include animals, celebrities, cars, and a “SpoiledBrats” collection. The Spoiled Brats collection featured cartoonish, predominantly female characters with oversized eyes, disproportionately large heads and feet, makeup, and bare midriffs, similar to the Bratz image.
Art Attacks Spoiled Brats design sold about 2,000 per year. Art Attacks copyrighted the "Spoiled Brats" characters in 1996.
MGA entertainment began selling Bratz dolls in 2001.
Art Attacks 'Spoiled Brats' designs[]
.png "Art Attack - Spoiled Brat T-Shirts (3).png (205 KB)")
.png "Art Attack - Spoiled Brat T-Shirts (2).png (172 KB)")
.png "Art Attack - Spoiled Brat T-Shirts (1).png (215 KB)")
Case[]
In 2004, Art Attacks filed suit against MGA, alleging causes of action including trademark, trade dress, and copyright infringement.
Aileen Storer is a a designer at MGA entertainment who designed the Bratz original logo. Art Attacks Inc alleges that Storer attended the Los Angeles Country Fair sometime between 1998 and 2001 where they were selling their Spoiled Brats designs and could have stolen the brand name/image.
Storer recalls attending a fair sometime between 1995 and 2005. However, there is no direct evidence that Storer ever saw an Art Attacks booth. Furthermore, Art Attacks failed to show that Storer visited the Los Angeles County Fair during the relevant period. Had she happened to attend the fair at the time, there was no proof she saw the Art Attack booth.
Seeing at the Spoiled Brats design only sold 2,000 units a year it was near enough impossible that Storer could come across one in the wild.
Art Attacks also contends that its website widely disseminated the Spoiled Brats designs. Art Attacks launched its website in 1996 and the image-heavy website took two full minutes to fully load. Even then, the Spoiled Brats design was only one of several images on the page. Viewers would not see the Spoiled Brats design without scrolling down on the page. Furthermore, the webpage did not include “meta tags” that would identify the Art Attacks site to internet search engines. As a result, a potential viewer who typed “Spoiled Brats” into a search field would likely encounter the Art Attacks page. A website with such limitations could not have widely disseminated the copyrighted Spoiled Brats material. A reasonable jury could not have concluded that there was more than a “bare possibility” that MGA had access to Art Attacks’s Spoiled Brats designs.
Art Attack Inc tried to claim that consumers were getting their products mixed with MGA's as they had the same name, but the three witnesses they produced were all found to be friends or employees of Art Attack founder Jo Ann Mauck, so they were dismissed.
Conclusion[]
The jury could not find evidence that MGA was aware of the Spoiled Brats before 2001 and therefore ruled in favour of MGA.