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03 May
Posted by Yehuda Berlinger as Card Games, Modern Board Games
Super Duper Publications is a small company that makes a plethora of highly specific educational board games, card games, books, etc, each described according to its alleged benefits. For example, the Look Who’s Listening board game is described as “The Auditory Memory, Integration, and Discrimination Board Game”.
These games are of particular use to speech pathologists.
Meanwhile …
Super Duper had been selling games with the words “… And Say” or “Say And …” since 1987. In 2004, Mattel opposed their registering trademarks based on these phrases, since Mattel had also been using them for their See ‘N Say toys. Mattel then filed to cancel several other Super Duper trademarks for similar phrases with “Say” in them.
Super Duper filed in court preemptively for a judgment that its use of “Say” in 15 products did not infringe on Mattel’s product. Mattel responded with a $10 million lawsuit seeking the reverse.
In 2008, a jury ok’d 8 of Super Duper’s products, but held them liable for $400,000 damages on the other 7. Super Duper filed an appeal, and Mattel sued to increase the damages to $1 million and also obtain $2.8 million in attorney costs.
In April, 2009, Mattel won that suit, for $1 million in damages, and $2.6 million in attorney costs. (source) Super Duper has appealed. Super Duper is also suing their insurance companies, who dropped SD’s coverage after SD filed suit against Mattel. I think that’s where it stands.
I will also note several complaints from former Super Duper workers in this post. I will also note that the veracity of these complaints are unverified, and that they appeared right after Mattel won their large suit against SD.
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