Troll Company A/S v. Uneeda Doll Company, Ltd.,
400 F. Supp. 2d 601 (S.D.N.Y. 2005), aff’d, 483 F.3d 150 (2d Cir. 2007).

In a case of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction we secured on behalf of Troll Company A/S of Denmark, copyright owner of the famous fuzzy-haired Good Luck Troll doll, preventing distribution of “Wish-nik” dolls by Uneeda Doll Co., Ltd. The U.S. copyright for the Good Luck Troll had been invalidated in 1965, but was resuscitated 30 years later by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (“URAA”) (codified in Section 104A of the U.S. Copyright Act), which restored copyrights of foreign authors lost for failure to comply with statutory formalities. The Court ruled that Uneeda, which sold Wish-nik dolls when the Good Luck Troll was in the public domain, was not a “reliance party” entitled to notice and a one-year sell-off period under the URAA because there had been “more than trivial interruption” in its sale of the dolls after Troll Co.’s rights were restored.

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