In 1998, Carter Bryant, a doll designer on leave from Mattel, was working in a mall in Kimberling City, Missouri. One day, on the way to his parents home, he saw a group of teenage girls walking together. Bryant was struck by their confidence and fashion sense.
Inspired by the girls, he began making sketches for a new line of dolls. Dolls that looked nothing like the Barbies he had worked on back at Mattel.
Two years later, Bryant sold his idea to MGA, a small company known primarily for distributing video games. Five years later, Bratz had become the biggest-selling doll line on Earth carving out 40 percent of market share that used to belong to Mattel. When executives at Mattel discovered that Bryant had originated the idea of Bratz, they launched a lawsuit against MGA claiming that they owned the rights to their biggest rival.
After a lengthy trial, Mattel won, the judge ordering MGA to cease manufacturing Bratz. But, an appeals court judge vacated the verdict and ordered a new trial. After which, MGA emerged victorious.
The story of this legal battle is told in Orly Lobel’s new book, You Don’t Own Me. Before your eyes glaze over with the thought of reading a book on contract law, you should know that the Mattel vs. MGA battle is fascinating, even for those who don’t know a Barbie from a Skipper.
To say that the personalities involved in this book are colorful is an understatement. First, there is Carter Bryant, a starry-eyed dreamer, temperamentally unsuited for the cutthroat corporate world. Bryant would wind up a broken man, unemployable and penniless.
Next, Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel and got the inspiration for Barbie from a pornographic doll she encountered in Switzerland. Handler, who named Barbie and Ken after her children was eventually ousted from her own company after being convicted of securities fraud.
Isaac Larian, an Iranian immigrant, co-founded MGA with his brother. He then bought out his brother just before introducing the Bratz line, thus depriving his brother of billions. As a result, Larian faced a lawsuit from his own brother at the same time he was trying to fend of Mattel.
Robert Eckert, the Mattel CEO ran the toy company with the same ridged hand that he used as head of Kraft Foods. During the second trial, Eckert had trouble telling his own dolls from those of MGA. Tired of being stuck in traffic during the commute to the trial, he tried unsuccessfully, to convince the county to let him land his corporate helicopter near the courthouse.
And I must mention, Romanian immigrant, Alex Kozinsky, the appeals court judge who overturned the original verdict. Kozinsky’s obsession with movies led him to hold monthly film parties at the Pasadena courthouse. It is Kozinsky’s opinion of the effects of intellectual property law that the author is most in sympathy with.
This is a story in which everyone loses. Mattel lost the case and their reputation took a major hit when evidence emerged during the second trial of Mattel’s widespread use of illegal industrial espionage. MGA won the case, but the huge legal expenses they ran up crippled the company and sales of Bratz began a steady decline. Mattell CEO Eckert was soon forced out of the company.
But by far, the biggest loser was Carter Bryant. His lover blew through all of Bryant’s money, then left him. The controversy over the lawsuit left other toy companies reluctant to hire him and the stress caused by testifying for days appeared to sap his creativity.
Lobel concludes her book with a plea for the legal system to loosen up interpretation of intellectual property rights. She believes that large corporations are using intellectual property and copyright law not to protect their assets, but to stifle potential competition. In her view, Mattel became fossilized and unable to adapt to changes in consumer's taste. They relied on legal threats and intimidation rater than innovation to hold on to their market share.
You Don’t Own Me is recommended for those interested in copyright and intellectual property issues. But it also provides a look inside the often merciless world of toy manufactures. And it will appeal to anyone who enjoys a good yarn with over-the-top characters.

YOU DON"T OWN ME

For practically the entire half-century since its debut, Mattel's Barbie doll was the iconic toy for girls around the world. That is, until upstart MGA Entertainment and its Bratz line of dolls seemingly came out of nowhere to successfully challenge Barbie's dominance in its market segment.

The book You Don't Own Me: How Mattel vs. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie's Dark Side is author Orly Lobel's attempt to chronicle the legal controversy surrounding Bratz and Barbie–a controversy that arose largely due to the fact that Carter Bryant, the creator of Bratz, had been an employee of Mattel assigned to work on Barbie.

Although it's not specifically organized in this manner, there are three parts to the book. First, there are those sections that seek to impart a condensed version of Barbie's history, from its origins as a knockoff version of a more risque German doll meant for adults to becoming the prized piece of Mattel's toy empire. As such, the least one will get out of You Don't Own Me is a lot of trivia about both Barbie and Mattel.

Second, sections of You Don't Own Me are naturally devoted to providing the context for the legal wrangling that would eventually take place between Mattel and MGA. Readers are introduced to Carter Bryant, the person who came up with the idea that would become Bratz while technically on sabbatical from Mattel. Much is also written about Isaac Larian, MGA's founder and CEO, and the story of how MGA came to be as well as the circumstances that led the company to work with Bryant to develop the Bratz line of dolls. Glimpses of the intense competition within the toy industry are also provided, with anecdotes about both corporate espionage and litigation between and among toy companies. Such stories make it quite apparent that the toy industry is anything but fun and games. Quite the contrary: when a single hit toy can make or break a company the stakes are very high, for which reason industry veterans can only be described as cutthroat.

Finally, of course, is the courtroom battle between Mattel and MGA itself. At the core of the legal dispute was really just the question of the rightful ownership of the idea that brought Bratz to life, and necessarily whether or not it was simply a knockoff of Mattel's Barbie.

Author Lobel appears to be in her element as takes readers through the litigation between Mattel and MGA. Her own legal background comes to the fore when she ably walks readers through the finer points of intellectual property law–such as fair use, and the distinction between ideas and the expression of those ideas–as they apply to the claims and counterclaims of both Mattel and MGA. This allows readers to develop an appreciation for the legal posturing on both sides. Admittedly, the underlying narrative of You Don't Own Me suffers at times as Lobel opts against a blow-by-blow account of the events both leading up to and during the various court hearings in favor of an arguably dry presentation of the facts of the case and the resulting judgments, occasionally foreshadowing the latter. But the book certainly shines when it dissects the various legal questions that the courts were asked to ultimately resolve.

Ultimately, You Don't Own Me is a real account of what happens when the protection of intellectual property is pursued through contentious litigation, and one that immediately catches readers' attention because of the object under scrutiny: toys in general and the Barbie doll in particular.