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31 October 2019CopyrightRory O'Neill

Barbie maker scores win in long-running Bratz dispute

A 15-year-old trade secrets dispute between the makers of the Barbie and Bratz doll appears to be coming to an end after a California state appeal court declined to revive the case.

Yesterday, the California Court of Appeal upheld a lower state court’s ruling that trade secrets claims brought by Bratz maker MGA were barred under the three-year statute of limitations.

Barbie maker Mattel first sued former employee and designer Carter Bryant in 2004. Mattel claimed that Bryant, who left the company and created the first designs of Bratz for MGA, misappropriated its trade secrets and infringed copyright.

That case resulted in a settlement in 2008, after which Mattel sued MGA itself for $1 billion and ownership of the Bratz brand, citing misappropriation of trade secrets. MGA responded with its own infringement claims, leading to a combined trial.

Mattel was initially successful, as the US District Court for the Central District of California in 2011 ruled that MGA had infringed Mattel’s copyright, misappropriated its trade secrets and encouraged Bryant to breach his employment contract with the Barbie manufacturer.

But Mattel’s victory was overturned on appeal by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ordered the case to be retried. MGA followed that success up with another claim accusing Mattel employees of misrepresenting themselves at trade shows to gain access to MGA’s designs.

The retrial initially resulted in a victory for MGA, but the back-and-forth dispute took another twist when the Ninth Circuit instructing the district court to throw out MGA’s trade secrets claims in 2013.

MGA then pursued its case at state level, filing a complaint at the Superior Court of Los Angeles county.

Mattel successfully filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the three-year statute of limitations, a decision which was upheld by the California Court of Appeal yesterday.

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