Mattel taken to court over Bakugan toys
Canada-based toy company Spin Master has taken rival Mattel to court, accusing the multinational of infringing patents used in its transforming Bakugan robots.
“ Bakugan Battle Brawlers” is a Japanese-Canadian TV series which centres on the Bakugan creatures and the battle brawlers who possess them.
In a claim filed at the US District Court for the Central District of California on Tuesday, April 24, Spin Master claimed that Mattel has infringed patents (US numbers 8,500,508 and 9,868,073) covering a magnetic transformation feature.
Bakugan is a combination of the Japanese words ‘baku’, meaning ‘to explode’, and ‘gan’, meaning ‘sphere’, and the Bakugan name literally translates to ‘exploding sphere’, according to the Canadian company.
“This is an apt name for the Bakugan line of toys, as the Bakugan characters ‘explode’ from a spherical form into a character form when the Bakugan character comes in contact with a magnetic component,” it added.
The allegedly infringing toy line, Mecard, was released in the US by Mattel earlier this year.
According to Spin Master, the toys were available in South Korea before their US launch, and existed alongside an anime series.
This suit follows three other patent claims involving the Bakugan technology and Mecard toys that Spin Master filed in 2017 against Mattel in Canada, Mexico and Australia.
Spin Master’s global sales of Bakugan products have reached more than $1 billion and the company plans to re-launch the Bakguan line globally in 2019.
“We go to great lengths to protect and enforce our intellectual property against others who try to unfairly capitalise on our innovation. It is unfortunate when our competitors do not respect our intellectual property rights or do not invest in their own innovation,” said Ben Gadbois, Spin Master's global president and chief operating officer.
In February, Spin Master took on Alpha Group US and Alpha Animation and Toys, claiming that the companies had infringed its Bakugan patents through the sale of the Screechers Wild toy product.
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