DISNEY CLAIM CONCERNING POOH STICKS


The BBC reports that Disney has won its 13 year royalties battle against Stephen Slesinger Inc, which had claimed that it was owed millions of dollars in unpaid Winnie the Pooh royalties. It seems though the case was not decided on trade mark or contractual grounds. Instead, the judge decided against Stephen Slesinger Inc because it had stolen documents from Disney's premises. Said Judge Charles McCoy, “SSI's willingness to tamper with, and even corrupt, the litigation process constitutes a substantial threat to the integrity of the judicial process”. Slesinger had argued in its defence that Disney had known that it was rummaging around in its dustbins for years but had never objected. This did not impress the US judge. Nonetheless, Slesinger has said that it plans to appeal.

The IPKat says that it’s a shame that the trade mark issues weren’t resolved here, but illegally obtaining documents is a bad idea in any field of law and the court’s position ought to discourage the practice. In a related story, the BBC reports that a team from the Czech Republic has taken the title of Pooh-sticks champions at the 21st annual world championship Pooh-sticks race. The IPKat wonders if this is a case of the expropriation of English traditional knowledge?

“Real” Winnie the Pooh here
Disney’s Winnie the Pooh here
Philosophy of Winnie the Pooh here
Pooh-sticks here, here and here

DISNEY CLAIM CONCERNING POOH STICKS DISNEY CLAIM CONCERNING POOH STICKS Reviewed by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.