Week 8 EOC: Mattel Vs. Bratz

The Mattel vs. Bratz dolls case has been going on for what seems like years on end now, and the brawl continues to unravel to this day. According to time.com, “The initial suit began in 2005 over the rights to a particular aspect of the Bratz design, when MGA filed against Mattel for allegedly copying the distinct Bratz eye feature in its new line of Barbies. (That case is still pending.) Later that year, Mattel countersued for $500 million, claiming that designer Carter Bryant, who created the racier, trendier Bratz dolls for MGA, had come up with the idea while he was employed by Mattel to design the more demure Barbies. Bryant joined MGA in 2000, and the company launched Bratz one year later.” (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2067001,00.html) This whole dispute relies heavily on intellectual property rights with Mattel claiming that they may claim entitlement to Bryant’s initial drawings of the Bratz Dolls. But according to MGA, the company that produces the Bratz Dolls, they claim that Bryant was not working for Mattel when the sketches were produced, giving MGA rights to the images. Again, Time.com states, “According to records, Bryant worked for Mattel from September 1995 to April 1998, returned in January 1999 and left again in October 2000 before joining MGA.” (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2067001,00.html) However, this feud has been going back and forth between both companies with judges giving one company rights to Mattel for the images, yet another judge allowing MGA to continue to produce the Bratz Dolls. It seems as if  start of this battle created one of the messiest law suits in recent years and will continue to progress forward, but in what direction? That’s still to be determined. However, Time.com has an idea. They state, “So instead of bleeding money in courts, the companies would be better off spending every dime on market research, as the real winner of the doll-vs.-doll battle will be decided by their customers. "The consumers who are buying dolls don't know anything about a lawsuit," Silver said. "Ninety-nine percent don't know or don't care. They just want to buy the doll their kid is asking for." (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2067001,00.html) Sounds like a fair way to look at it. Personally, I think the dispute is getting way out of hand and that each company is money hungry for the revenue of the Bratz Dolls. I, too, don't personally care for the dolls themselves because I think they give little girls a bad image of what a real woman look like, but that's just me. However, the customers do have the final say on these dolls. In other words, may the best doll win!

Week 8 BOC: Progress on Final Project

For my project, I plan on having two lawyers to contact just in case one of them might not help me for my project. Their names are Gwynne Dumbrigue [1(702) 762-5888] and John Lambertsen [1(702) 796-3476]. I want to ask them questions based on my major for school, which is Fashion Retail and Marketing. A question example would be, "When it comes to running a fashion retail store, what contracts do I need to be aware of if a person wanted to put my own designer pieces into their store?" I also want to ask them questions on copyright and trademark regulations for writing because I run a blog and would like to make sure I am doing the right things to gain credit for what I write. An example of a question I would ask is, "For the pieces of work I write on m blog, is there a way I could copyright every single literary work, or do I have to have a copyright for each entry?" I am hoping to gain more knowledge of contracts by asking such questions and hopefully will receive the correct answers in doing so.

As far as classwork goes, I am pretty up to date with my blog and my tweets. I will be honest and say that there are two blog post that I've started, but need to finish. One is the Wall Street Journal post from Week 5, and the other is the list of lawyers I'll be thinking of contacting for the final project from Week 7. Hopefully I can do that today so that I'm not scrambling around the last week of class trying to post them. I shouldn't procrastinate on homework because I should be doing it every week in order to receive the full credit.

Week 7 EOC: Lawyers

1. Gwynne Dumbrigue- 1(702) 762-5888
2. John Lambertsen- 1(702) 796-3476
3. Warren Paul Kujawa- 1(702)-270-8853
4. Susan Marie Pitz- 1(702)-307-4880
5.  Piet & Wright- 1 (702) 566-1212
6. Preston Sterling Kerr- 1 (702) 608-0835 
7. Watson Rounds- 1(702) 636-4902
8. Kring & Chung Attorneys- 1(702) 260-9500
9. Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP- 1 (702) 382-1414
    

Week 6 EOC: Illicit

After watching the movie in class, I realized that illegal manufacturing and shipping has great effects on our economy. I don’t think it necessarily affects the companies/high-end labels that these products are being influenced from, but it affects the people of our world. There are people who are receiving millions and billions of dollars for selling counterfeit products and it’s completely unfair to the consumers of these fraud products. Although there are some people (mostly women) who would prefer to purchase a fake Louis Vuitton bag off the street versus saving and spending thousands of dollars for the real thing, there are other products, such as medication, that are being sold unfairly.  I learned from the video that there are people who are selling counterfeit medications/pills to people via internet, and the pills don’t even work. That, or the medications are made with toxic things that harm the body and can only worsen symptoms. In this aspect, I say that illegal manufacturing is unfair and is being abused by people. The people who run these companies know that most customers are looking to save money and sacrifice the actual quality of the product. Customers should be wary and cautious when finding and purchasing these products because they don’t know exactly what it’s made from. A picture of a medication pill could seem like the real thing, but there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the black market.

Overall, I found this movie to be informative and quite intriguing because the black market is a completely different world. It’s a big risk for these filmmakers to take when documenting all of this real footage, but it has to be exposed for the benefit of these customers and for those considering to start purchasing black market products.

Week 5 EOC: Patent Trolls

After reading this article, it shocks me that big name companies such as Brooks Brothers and Proctor and Gamble, would even neglect the fact that they need to update their patents. Patent pending is a very big deal and for those companies not to follow the rules and regulations for patents, is very unprofessional to me. However, patent trolls are worse. Patent trolls are out on the prowl, trying to sue for patent infringement. These “creatures” are costing corporations billions of dollars for their wrong doings. My thoughts on this matter are that I think with how advanced our technology is nowadays, there should already be a way to avoid situation like this from happening. There needs to be a simpler way to keep track of these patent dates in a timely and orderly fashion. If not, situations like this will continue to happen, possibly ruining big name corporations.

Week 4 EOC: Experience

Attending this class has been quite the experience. I've never taken a class that talked about the technical paperwork in the business, and I honestly thought it would be boring. However, this class really surprised me. It turned out to be engaging, informative, and a class worth waking up in the wee hours of the morning for.

The material that was lectured to the students for the class was informative, information that I hope to take with me when I venture off into the fashion industry. It was a lot of fun to watch movies and television shows that directly related to what handling important paperwork is like. The blogging/tweeting assignments made me feel like I was writing a mini paper every week, but I loved learning about every topic. I hope that during the next six weeks of this class, I will continue to learn more about the copyrights and trademarks because it is a major part of the fashion industry. Learning to carefully read paperwork and what rights you have as a patent holder are parts of the success plan when trying to make it in this business.

Considering I’m taking five classes this quarter, I will be honest and say that there were some weeks where I had hard time remembering the homework for this class. The “technology forgiveness” acts really saved me when it came to homework. In the end, since I knew it was part of the midterm, I wanted to make sure that everything, from my blog post to my tweets, were set in place in order to receive full credit. All in all, I feel like I accomplished just that.

Week 3 EOC: Jeopardy Questions

1. An arrangement between 2 or more companies that assign their patents to a 3rd watch party. This is also when companies make an arrangement to share their patents by providing them with access to each other’s patents on a reciprocal basis .
    -What is a patent appeal?
2. An agreement by which a patent owner authorizes another to make, use, and or sell the patented invention but retains the right to license it to others as well.
   -What is nonexclusive patent release?
3. This application is filed subsequent to an original application which includes new material not covered in the original application. This application provides a way for an inventor to supplement an earlier patent application with new matter to cover improvement made since the first app was filed.
   -What is the continuation-in-part application (CIP)?