| As Bench Trials Resume in
SDNY Mattel Makes Case Against BARBIE
Infringers on eBay
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
July 21 – In a socially
distanced courtroom atop the
U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York
at 500 Pearl Street in lower
Manhattan on July 21, SDNY
Judge P. Kevin Castel held his
first trial since
mid-March.
The witness box
was enclosed in plexiglass,
and half of the gallery's
benches had been removed.
Inner City Press was the only
observer, of the four lawyers
and court reporter seated in
the front.
The case involved
Mattel, the toy company, suing
a group of China-based eBay
sellers for infringing on
Mattel's Barbie trademark.
Mattel quoted
"current Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor that 'by any
measure, the world known
BARBIE is a "famous" trademark
under the Federal
Anti-Dilution Act," citing
Mattel Inc. v. Jcom, Inc.,
1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16195,
*9 (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 10,
1998).
On July 21, the
bench trial took less than a
hour. As Judge Castel told the
defendants at the pre-trial
conference, "if I sign this
joint pretrial order as
proposed by the plaintiffs,
you will be foreclosed from
calling witnesses or offering
documents." (Defendants'
counsel replied, "We don't
intend to call any witness.")
Judge Castel has asked for
post-trial written submissions
by the parties before he will
rule. He thanked the court
reporter for coming in
in-person, and called this
first bench trial "the end of
the beginning, perhaps."
The docket
provided that "attorneys
appearing at a Southern
District of New York
courthouse must complete a
questionnaire and have their
temperature taken before being
allowed entry into that
courthouse." The brief trial
occurred without incident. The
case is Mattel, Inc. v
2012SHININGROOM2012, et al.,
18-cv-11648 (Castel)
***
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