Mattel Attacks mattl.com

Shrug. Headline says it all. Mattel (you know, the company that makes Cyber Patrol) is now sending out cease-and-desist orders to domains that, you know, sorta resemble their name. Sorta. In a way.

Once upon a time, trademarks were useful to prevent consumers from being confused about the origin of goods or services. Not any more. Now they're weapons, pure and simple. mattl.com is a weblog. Doesn't sell toys. Doesn't try to pretend it's actually Mattel Inc. But hey, sending scary legal letters is cheap. Extra: Aminal sends a pointer to a story, though it doesn't have any details.

Comments

"sorta resemble" is "likelyhood of confusion"

[Seth Finkelstein]

What's new is the extensive application, not the doctrine itself. Also dilution.

See A Primer on Trademark Law and Internet Addresses

- the Boston Lunatic

Re:"sorta resemble" is "likelyhood of confusion"

[grahamm]

One problem area about which the primer seems to have nothing to say is that where companies in different areas (either different areas of trade or geographical) have the same trademark.

Re:"sorta resemble" is "likelyhood of confusion"

[Lord Kano]

I'm not sure about this. I remember about ~7 years ago when a company started making men's underwear under the name of Body Action Design (BAD) and they were sued by the BVD people, the judge found that the more popular or dominant a name is in a field the less chance there will be of consumer confusion by a similar name. Gel-E Gelatin couldn't be confused with that other gelatin because of that other brand's market dominance.

If you know what I mean by "that other gelatin", you've just proven me right.

LK

Re:"sorta resemble" is "likelyhood of confusion"

[y6y6y6]

I'm not a lawyer, but the primer indicates that similarity in the spelling isn't the deciding factor:

Obviously these factors must be applied on a case-by-case basis. However, the issue is not whether the marks themselves would be confused for each other, but rather whether the use of a similar mark will cause consumers to confuse the source of the goods or services as being that of the senior mark owner

Since the only way Mattel customers would ever know about mattl.com would be to spell it wrong it the address bar or a search, I don't see how anyone could EVER be confused.

Jon Sullivan

First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

[chaobell]

I just ran a Google search on "Mattel lawsuit." Jeezis Moe! They sued the sorehands.com guy. They sent a nastygram to a guy with a Barbie joke on his site (which he didn't even write). They sued over cphack. They sued Seal Press over the Adios, Barbie book. And this is just on the first page of search results! Didn't they also go after Aqua over the Barbie Girl song (yes, the song sucks, but that's neither here nor there)?

Methinks Mattel's legal staff has way too much free time.

Re:First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

[maddurbation]

1. MPAA
2. RIAA
3. Amazon.com
4. M$
5. NBC
6. M$
7. Mattel
8. Your company here =)

"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"

You missed alot.

[www.sorehands.com]

They also went after Barbie Benson (http://www.barbiebenson.com).

Then of couse, Mattel sued a lawyer that handled a case against Mattel for libel.

Did anyone notice, most of Mattel's lawsuits are against little guys? Am I wrong about it?

Re:You missed alot.

[chaobell]

Like I said, that was just the first page of search results. :)

And yes, you're right; it appeared to me that Mattel was for the most part going after little guys. There were exceptions, but for the most part they mostly appear to be harassing people who they know damn well aren't going to be able to stand up to them. I wouldn't be surprised if I got served over this. :)

Barbie

[pigpogm]

I just posted a message entitled "Barbie".

Where's my lawsuit?

Spiders

[Spax]

Talking about this at dinner last night, someone mentioned seeing a spider that looked for potential trademark violations.
Any chance large corporations are just spidering for similar terms (a step up form googling and suing).
Just a fear that technology and the web are making it cheaper and faster for coprprations to attack artists.

Barbie Girl

[luckykaa]

Didn't they also go after Aqua over the Barbie Girl song

Yes, but MCA fought the battle. The judge ruled it was a parody. Also threw out a countersuit by MCA. Reference here

And the RIAA and Mattel clashed and the sounds of battle were heard across continents.

Re:Barbie Girl

[luckykaa]

Come to think of it, have Mattel ever actually won a lawsuit, or do they just rely on people backing down after receiving the Cease and Desist demands?

Mattel's arrogance

[hrieke]

Of course this really goes a long way in showing how some companies just don't get it, and rather not deal with (1) opposing views, or (2) something that is not in their control.

This is not even Etoy and Etoys type of case (were there was adult type images), but more in line of Veronica vs Archie Comics, where a father of a new born bought the domain name only to be sued by Archie Comics. (I just checked both Veronica.com and Betty.com and found that they both jump to Archiecomics.com - does anyone know what happened?). Someone should explain, in rather plain and simple English that sometimes a person's name might match a company's name.

I wonder if I were to start a company called Mattl which made auto parts if Mattel would sue me too?

Funny thought: Has Mattel taken legal lessions from the COS?

Re:Mattel's arrogance

[commodoresloat]

This is not even Etoy and Etoys type of case (were there was adult type images)

Where in etoy were there adult images? I think the only "adult" issue was that the etoy site originally asked users to "download the fucking flash plugin" if they couldn't see their animations. To my knowledge there were no obscene or "adult" images on their site; that was just a red herring thrown up by etoys' liars^H^H^H^Hawyers to make people think etoy was some kind of pr0n site. Of course, IANASCJ (I am not a Supreme Court Justice); perhaps "fucking flash plugin" somehow falls under the Miller Standard.

Re:The Wrong Sort of Toy Story...

[dadith]

Because for a toy company the name is *everything*. Their products and offerings are pretty much interchangeable, so they have to rely on brand awareness to sell stuff at higher price. They spend a lot of money to build that awareness and put back a significant amount of money to defend it.
Ciao, Peter

The Wrong Sort of Toy Story...

[Holgate]

How come it's the toy corporations which come across as the worst offenders in this type of legislation? We've had eToys vs etoy, Hasbro vs Clue Computing, and now Mattel. Honestly, I'd be worried about the influence these companies have on kids...

Open Directory category on mattl.com dispute

[Robin Lionheart]

The ODP already has a Dis puted Domain Names: mattl.com category for links about this dispute.

http://slsahdot.org/index.html

[psin psycle]

I wonder how mattel would feel about stuff like slsahdot

I wonder how andover feels about it?