Posted on October 16, 2008.
It’s a month-old story, and how it got past us here notwithstanding, it’s not getting past us now. Per the 
ABA Journal, remember the Bratz litigation? Well, you haven’t read half of it yet:
Two toy companies battling for rights to the Bratz dolls-with-attitude have racked up legal fees of at least $93 million in the case.
MGA Entertainment has spent $63 million in fees since 2004 defending a lawsuit by Mattel Inc. that contended the doll’s designer conceived of the idea before leaping from Mattel to MGA, the Daily Journal reports (sub. req.). Plaintiff Mattel has spent $30 million in just the first half of the year, the story says.
Mattel was awarded $100 million in the case, far short of the more than $2 billion in damages it had sought.
The Daily Journal got MGA’s figures in a lawsuit it filed against its insurers seeking full payment of the Bratz fees, while the publication got the Mattel figure from a stock analyst.
The ABA item quotes a Jones Day litigation partner who is flummoxed at the idea that there is any conceivable way to get to $93 million for a trademark case, even over the course of four years. We sure are, too. And re-read this ‘graph:
MGA Entertainment has spent $63 million in fees since 2004 defending a lawsuit by Mattel Inc. . . . Plaintiff Mattel has spent $30 million in just the first half of the year, the story says.
That $30 million was just the first half of ’08! That means Mattel spent WAY more than $30 million since the suit began in ’04, and that the total legal fees must have blasted way, way past $100 million since the case began.
Is there anyone out there who can even remotely do this math and explain how you can get to numbers like this — not how they can be justified, for, given the business interests involved, they are not irrational. But how many widgets, and of what kind, does a law firm have to spit out to get to these kinds of numbers on a trademark case?
