PWInsider reports that the lawsuit filed in the US District Court of Virginia over replica Ring of Honor championship belts was dismissed yesterday. Parks, Millican & Mann LLC (a company that designs and produces the replica belts) sued Rhodes Island’s Figures Toy Company for removing their copyright on the ROH belt replicas and replacing it with a copyright for Ring of Honor Wrestling in September 2016.
The lawsuit stated there were two sides in the negotiations but they never finalized the agreement and Figures Toy Company went ahead with production of replicas, belts for action figures and rings without their consent. PM&M created and had copyright for the designs and didn’t sell them to anyone else beyond giving the designs to ROH. ROH reportedly came to PM&M about Figures producing replicas, which started negotiations and then PM&M provided samples with their copyright.
An agreement was not signed, and the versions that were made didn’t have the copyright. In November, ROH was added as a defendant, as PM&M claimed they entered an agreement with Figures Toys knowing they didn’t own the designs. They also say that ROH approved the designs of the replicas with the removed copyrights and allegedly infringed upon PM&M’s copyrights “for their own commercial gain.”
Finally, the lawsuit claims that Figures Toy Company sold $60,000 worth of replicas and has another $100,000 worth in stock. PM&M claims that they were never paid licensing royalties on the products. They were seeking $25,000 per violation, plus interest as well as an injunction preventing the sale of the belts. Now that the case has been dropped, Figures Toys can continue producing ROH products.
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