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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
To some people, a Captain America charm bracelet may be only cheap jewelry, but to comic book publisher Marvel, it’s a valuable commodity.
That’s apparently the rationale behind litigation filed by Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based Marvel Characters B.V. in federal district court in New York last week against Burbank, Calif.-based JewelM Inc.
Marvel’s 8,000 proprietary characters include Captain America as well as Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Marvel said in its lawsuit that JewelM violated a license agreement under which, before selling a licensed product to any customer, it must provide Marvel with 40 production samples from the first production run of each licensed product for Marvel’s production.
The license agreement also provided that within 30 days prior to the license agreements’ expiration in March 2013, it would provide Marvel with a full written statement of any then-existing unsold inventory of licensed products.
Instead, says the lawsuit, JewelM sold more than 50,000 licensed articles to an affiliate, in violation of the license agreement.
Charges against JewelM include breach of contract, copyright infringement and trademark infringement. An inventory valuation summary attached to the lawsuit estimates the total asset value of the jewelry, which also includes a Spider-Man cuff link and money clip box, a Thor dog tag and key ring box set, and a Hulk cuff link, at $73,691.55.