Mattel gets court order against Bratz

How nice would it be to get a court order forbidding a principal competitor to sell their products? Mattel just pulled that off, being granted an order forbidding MGA to sell its Bratz dolls..

U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson in Riverside, California, yesterday granted Mattel’s request to stop MGA from making most of its multiethnic fashion dolls that have contributed to a drop in Barbie sales since being first sold in 2001. A jury earlier found that a Mattel designer came up with the Bratz name and characters and secretly took the idea to MGA.

“Mattel has established its exclusive rights to the Bratz drawings, and the court has found that hundreds of the MGA parties’ products, including all the currently available core female fashion dolls Mattel was able to locate in the marketplace, infringe those rights,” Larson said in his ruling.

Mattel had earlier won an award of $100 million in damages. MGA is appealing both that decision and now the injunction.