EOC Week 8: Bratz Brawl

Mattel and MGA Entertainment went to court, because Mattel claimed that Bratz was part of their intellectual property. Because the guy who designed Bratz was working for Mattel at the time and therefore Mattel owns the sketches, at least that’s what Mattel has said. Mattel and MGA had been in court for years, but in April of 2011, Mattel has lost the case. Carter Bryant a guy who designed Bratz has said that he came up with the design in 1998, when he was living with his parents. Mattel did not own the original sketches for Bratz. In the article by The Wrap says, “Mattel had claimed lost wages between $314 million and $544 million in the current trial.” And MG was awarded $3.4 million for damages for trade-secret theft. It looks like Mattel were able to stop Hasbro from copying their idea with Hasbro’s G.I. Joe line, but looks like Mattel couldn’t stop MGA, which I think is very interesting. And it was all because of Mattel not owning Bratz designs. It’s cool to see that Mattel won’t be the only ones making dolls for girls. It seems like Bratz is more popular with girls more than the Barbie dolls. That’s probably the true reason why Mattel wanted to take MGA to court. Bratz had their own movie, TV series and songs and Barbie only had few movies. So I think that’s one of the reason why Bratz are more successful right now. Mattel should research more, but now since they’ve lost money it would be impossible right now.

Week 8 BOC: Progress in getting a lawyer

I’m still in a progress in getting a lawyer. My parents apparently know a lawyer, but they don’t know what he actually does as a lawyer. So I’m not sure if he’s a real lawyer.  I have already made my ten questions to ask for that lawyer. I will contact him this week and hopefully I will get to talk to him and get to know him. This project started off pretty badly because my dad told me that I’m not doing this project, since I have to talk to a lawyer. But now everything is okay and I can talk to my lawyer. I hope that lawyer would able to talk to me, if I can then this project would get very difficult for me. After I talk to the lawyer then the project would get easier from there. All I’m worried about is contacting the lawyer, because this is the hardest part about this project.

EOC Week 7: Plans

I think this will the toughest school project I would ever do. Hearing that it is not easy to get a lawyer to talk to you. I’m already nervous about this. Hopefully my family would know a lawyer. If not I would have to ask my friends. If my friends don’t know any lawyers then I would have to search on the internet for a local lawyers that would talk to me. I might start with the lawyers that just got started since, they would need to build up their ego. Since every lawyers study every law in the book, they should know about intellectual property even if they aren’t focused on that field. But before I do all that I will have to come up with ten questions for the lawyer according the directions for this project. ten questions that are related to my interests. Since I am focusing on my Digital Filmmaking and Video Productions major. My question would have to be based around that. I will have about three weeks to do my project, so on week 1, I will come up with 10 questions related to my major. Week 2 I will have to contact a lawyers and get my questions answered, hopefully that won’t take too long to do. And my last week I will put everything together. Hopefully it will work out for me. This will tough, but I will have to give it my all, in order to complete this important project for this class.

EOC Week 6: Illicit

My hobby is to collect action figures. I never bought knock-offs because it breaks so easily and the company who makes the products will lose products. But now watching the documentary “Illicit: The Dark Trade” I will never ever buy knock-offs of any kind. People can get killed from these trades. People just don’t realize what they buying. If it’s cheap and looks real, people will buy them. Knock-off seems to be everywhere, so what people should do is to look up where they are buying from. Places like Ebay are harder to source, so those kinds of sites are risky. People who buys knock-offs and is aware that it is fake, Should watch this documentary. This documentary really opened my eyes to this dark trade. Even though I never buy knock-offs, I never realized of how bad, buying knock-offs were. It is scary and people should be aware of these things. If the price of the product are too good to be true, the chances are that it is fake and should avoid it. When are buying knock-offs, you’re not just hurt to company. You are hurting the people that are working in these unfortunate jobs. Just be careful of what and where you’re buying from.

EOC Week 5: Patent Trolls

I have just read an article on Patent Trolls. I think when this lawsuit happens, the trolls and the company both are at fault. The Patent trolls has no right suing something that they don't even own. And the company needs to check if they still has the rights for a patent or else something like this would happen. For those who don’t know who that patent trolls are. “Patent trolls is a disparaging term for someone who sues for patent infringement, but who does not make or sell any products using they patented technology. There is a friendlier term for them that I don’t use for 2 reasons. Patent trolls are easier to remember and Patent troll is a right word for them in my opinion. “A friendlier term for the practice is patent assertion company.” Like I said Patent trolls are easier to say. “Patent trolls typically rely on the fear of permanent injunctions to elicit licensing fees.” A way to avoid patent trolls are to check if you still have the rights to the patents. I don’t like patent trolls at all.

EOC Week 4: Jeopardy

My jeopardy experience in my class was great. I had lots of fun. Watching Jeopardy shows aren't fun at all, but actually playing jeopardy it's so fun. I learned a lot of terms in a process as well. Some of my classmate seems like they are taking the game too seriously, but other than that it was fun. I believe playing a great jeopardy people should just relax and have fun and it’s the same with all of the other games like basketball, football, soccer and etc. The students seem to get angry when they are losing the game. Which I think isn’t cool at all. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t play jeopardy that often, but thankfully  there weren’t any fights over it. There weren’t any cheating claims, but there were some “This isn’t fair!” moment. I was afraid because I’m playing jeopardy with people that I don’t have a lot of past interactions with. I do play jeopardy with my friends sometimes and when we do it is fun. But this jeopardy wasn’t bad at all. Jeopardy is a great way to study for tests.