Monkey lamp lawsuit dismissed
By Cinde W. Ingram -- Home Accents Today, 2/1/2007
U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson dismissed a federal lawsuit that accused a former Vintage Verandah product development/sales manager of copyright infringement related to stealing a squatting monkey lamp design, producing it and selling identical versions through Wal-Mart.
Wilson ruled that designer Cricket Briggs created the Bubba Monkey lamp design while working as an independent contractor and not as a Vintage employee. Briggs having been given a 1099 form to report her sales commission earnings rather than a W2 form and not being provided health insurance were key to his ruling. The judge said it was Briggs' prerogative to hand over her rights to the squatting monkey design to her friend, Jerry Strickland Jr., former product development and sales manager for Elite Lamps, which spun off Vintage. Strickland in turn did nothing wrong by using Briggs' design to make and sell to Wal-Mart after leaving Vintage and forming his own Jonesboro, Ark.-based company, Mastercraft International, in 2001, Wilson ruled.
Wilson dismissed Wal-Mart's involvement, noting the mass merchant was "not liable for copyright infringement because it sold lamps produced by Mastercraft under a valid copyright and with the permission of the lamp's creator."
No appeal will be filed, according to Gerald Coleman, the West Memphis, Ark., attorney who represented Vintage Verandah. "We actually thought it was worth a lot more money," Coleman said. "I guess the lesson for the industry is you need to have a written agreement that you own a design. The way I see it, very few companies have their own designers who are employees." Coleman said his client, Jimmy Pike of Vintage, had claimed his uncle, the late Ed Pike, Vintage founder and a mold maker, jointly created the design with Briggs.
Jimmy Pike, president and CEO of Vintage Verandah, said the dispute shows how the home accents industry has changed over the past 15 years, when "there were a lot more agreements by handshake."
Strickland said he knew Briggs owned the rights to the Bubba Monkey Lamp from the beginning of their three-year legal ordeal. "I guess the main thing is, Cricket does own 100% rights to the lamp," he said. "The designer does have intellectual rights."
Briggs, who designed the piece in the early 1990s, said she was relieved at the judge's ruling. "I think there are lots of companies in this industry who have people like me or who have designers on staff," Briggs said, "and they need to make sure they have those papers signed correctly so something like this does not come back in 15 years to bite them. They need to look over the law, how they are paying their designers and if they do have the rights to it or not. I would have never thought this would happen but it did.
"I have been in this industry over 20 years and I did not want my reputation tarnished by false accusations," she said. "It was a very frivolous lawsuit and a waste of taxpayers' dollars, but I do feel both Jerry's and my integrity is still in place."
Strickland agreed accusations in the lawsuit challenged both their integrities and cost him money to defend his company and his customer. "The bottom line is I'm glad it's over and my reputation is intact," he said.
Pike said his customers should not worry because the end consumer is not liable unless a copyright was violated. He added, the trend of featuring distinctive monkey figures in designs passed in 2001 or 2002. "I would say 90% of my existing customers never purchased that product," Pike said of the monkey lamp.
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