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This scenario is common - the characters in the real life saga of Mattel v MGA Entertainment are not. The above scenario is what sparked a bonfire of court battles between Mattel Inc. Mattel first filed suit in claiming that its former employee was employed at Mattel when he conceived the concept of the Bratz dolls.
The Bratz dolls were hugely successful beginning in and were a top seller. Mattel won the first trial in claiming the employee misappropriated the trade secrets from Mattel after leaving and joining MGA, where the Bratz dolls were commercialized. The verdict was appealed, overturned and remanded for retrial.
On retrial the jury, instead, decided the case in favor of MGA and rejected Mattel's arguments. MGA had counter-claimed arguing that Mattel did not develop the concept but instead used individuals, with phony business cards, to spy on MGA's unreleased product concepts and marketing plans at tradeshows and thereby stole its trade secrets.
The moral of the story: trade secret misappropriation cases are expensive and employers should identify what concepts employees are working on while employed, ensure that a confidential agreement is signed by employees before working on key creative or competitively commercial projects, and conduct exit interviews before the employee leaves the company. It Is a classic tale of industrial espionage: top employees secretly speak to rival firms; surveillance teams follow suspected boardroom moles; computer files are destroyed; billions of dollars are at stake.
But the explosive mix of capitalism and spying that is emerging from a California courthouse does not describe two battling oil giants or ruthless arms manufacturers.
Instead it is the battle of the dolls - Bratz vs Barbie - which is captivating a court audience in the city of Riverside. The top-selling firms from the world of dolls for 'tweenagers' are facing off in a case that is sending shock waves through a corporate world that might naively have assumed toy-makers play nicer than other firms.
In fact, it seems the toy industry is unusually brutal. The case stems from accusations by Mattel, which makes the iconic Barbie doll, that Carter Bryant, the designer of its now arch-rival dolls, Bratz, was still working for it when he came up with the idea.
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