Luxo Lawsuit

Reposted from over at the Pixar Blog;

" Lampmaker Luxo ASA, creators of the original Luxo desk lamp, unexpectedly filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Pixar in U.S. federal court* on Friday, ending some twenty-three years of amicable relations between the two companies.

The lawsuit stems from Luxo's discontent at the soon-to-be-released Luxo Jr. Premium Combo Pack of the Up Blu-ray, which will include a working replica Luxo Jr. lamp and also the giant audio-animatronic Luxo Jr. at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

Pixar's c. 1986 agreement with the Norway-based lamp manufacturer has long allowed the studio to use the Luxo name in connection with the character from Pixar's first short film Luxo Jr. and to use the character in its logo. But Luxo holds that the making of actual goods, especially functioning lamps, with the name is an infringement on their trademark not covered by the agreement.

While Luxo's statement in their complaint that the Luxo Jr. replicas will "cause devastating damage to Luxo and dilute the goodwill which Luxo has built up" is utter nonsense, someone at Disney's legal department really should have checked with the company as to whether they had any objection to the expanded uses for the character.

Interested to see how this will play out in court...

(via Bloomberg)

*For the legally inclined, the case is officially Luxo ASA vs. Walt Disney Co., 09-cv-7689, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)"