Dolls central figures in suits

A doll fight over the marketing of the iconic, wild-haired Trolls is getting ugly.

Burbank-based DIC Entertainment Corp. last week sued Troll Co., the Danish firm that owns the copyright to the 1950s-era dolls, saying it was defrauded in two deals reached in 2003 and 2004 to market the product line to a new generation.

Troll Co. concealed the fact that rampant sales of counterfeit dolls around the globe had undermined the brand’s value, DIC claimed.

Troll Co. slapped back Monday with a suit of its own, saying DIC fraudulently obtained licensing rights to the classic, quirky-looking Good Luck Troll -- as well as the right to market a modern offshoot called Trollz -- by concealing its “dire financial straits.”

DIC allegedly neglected the classic brand and lacked the resources to successfully market the Trollz line, which became such “an enormous flop” after it was launched in 2005 that it tarnished the whole product line, according to the suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

One sideshow in the dispute is a he-sued, she-sued name-calling battle.

Troll Co. demanded arbitration in the dispute and sent DIC a draft of its proposed lawsuit in mid-August, according to attorneys for the Danish firm.

The parties agreed to a nonbinding mediation that was scheduled to start Wednesday, but DIC principal Andy Heyward did not attend the meeting and about an hour later the Burbank company filed its case in federal court in Los Angeles, Troll Co. said.

“This effort to file their lawsuit first while pretending to mediate with us is a pathetic PR ploy,” Patricia Glaser, a Los Angeles lawyer representing Troll Co., said in a statement.

Josh Meyer, DIC’s senior vice president of business and legal affairs, disputed that contention.

“If they had been so confident of their position they would have filed long ago,” Meyer said Monday. “Their suit is, in fact, a reaction to our suit.”

Glaser said Troll Co.’s case was “very simple.”

“It alleges a deliberate fraud,” she said, “perpetrated by a company that was in dire financial straits and desperate to find a source of fast cash, to deceive Troll Co. into licensing away the precious rights to one of the most famous toys in the world.”

Last week, DIC alleged that at the time of the agreements it expressed concern about the sale of counterfeit trolls, but said it was assured by Troll Co. that the Danish firm had been “vigilant” in stamping them out.

Both sides are seeking damages of more than $20 million.

The adorably ugly dolls, created in the late 1950s by Danish woodcarver Thomas Dam, were first sold in the U.S. in the early 1960s.

The dolls and knockoff versions have generated an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion in global sales, although copyright troubles outside of Denmark kept Dam and his family from capitalizing on most of them.

After his death in 1989, Dam’s heirs granted Troll Co. the exclusive rights, and in 2000 the firm secured a U.S. copyright.

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josh.friedman@latimes.com