Subject:
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LEGO Getting Sued by Two California Women
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.mediawatch
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:49:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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2263 times
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From a Reuters article
(http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7201843)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two California women have sued Lego Systems Inc. in Los
Angeles, accusing it of stealing an idea that turned into one of the year's
hottest selling toys for the Danish toy company.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, demands that Lego pay damages of more than $1
million and stop selling Clikits, an arts and crafts building toy aimed at
pre-adolescent girls, until the company obtains a licensing agreement from the
plaintiffs.
Lego could not immediately be reached for comment.
The 72-year-old family-owned company, whose signature product is its plastic
building bricks, suffered its worst loss ever in 2003. In a bid to keep girls
interested as they grew beyond building blocks, Lego launched Clikits
accessory-making kits in 2003.
Clikits was named best activity toy of 2003 by the U.S. Toy Industry Association
and Lego reported selling 2.5 million Clikits sets in the six months after the
product's debut.
Earlier this month, Toys 'R Us picked Clikits as "one of the best items to fill
kids' stockings this year."
The appearance of the colorful snap-on jewelry kits astonished Joni Lynn Spiers
and Katrina Parish Videnovich, who had been pitching an identical line to
toymakers since 1997, their attorney Patricio Barrera said on Wednesday.
The designers had even considered naming their product Clikits but rejected it
in favor of Snapeez, Barrera said.
Spiers and Videnovich believe their representative, James Schuler, sold the idea
to Lego as his own during a trip to the company's Billund, Denmark,
headquarters, Barrera said.
Videnovich, a model and clothing designer, and Spiers, a businesswoman, claim
Lego has refused to acknowledge their 1997 U.S. patent or pay them for their
design
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