Week 8 EOC : Bratz vs. Mattel

The battle between Mattel and MGA is quite ridiculous. Right now, this case is like a game of tug-of-war. The court is in the middle and you have Mattel and MGA trying to get the court to rule in their favor. This case has been overturned quite a few times, first in favor of Mattel which was awarded 100 million dollars under the case of whether Barbie's clothing designer was still under contract when he came up with the Bratz design. "In 2008, a jury concluded that Barbie doll clothing designer Carter Bryant was under contract to Mattel when he came up with the initial design for the Bratz dolls. The jury awarded Mattel $100 million, and the trial judge ruled that the Bratz franchise was the property of Mattel."(under course shell description) This ruling was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by this reasoning, "it was unfair to give Mattel the Bratz line, because its value was "overwhelmingly" created by MGA." Just recently these two companies were at it again, but this time it was MGA who was coming out swinging. They were suing Mattel for using fake business cards to get access to MGA's toy shows so they could see what they were coming out with, so basically to steal their ideas. That isn't a farfetched story at all, it all likely could be true. That's what the jury thought and MGA won 172.5 million dollars. Then not too far down the road, once again, the federal appeals court threw out the verdict and said, "the company’s counterclaims shouldn’t have been allowed to go to the jury." (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-24/mga-bratz-win-over-mattel-partly-erased-by-appeals-court.html) There's so many flaws that are appearing in our court systems. One thing might be right in one court, but then they take it to a higher court and they throw out the verdict. The law is a crazy, ridiculous thing. After having the verdict thrown out twice, I would have done with it. Why doesn't MGA and Mattel just join forces and become a huge monopoly, oh wait, those are illegal...whoops.