Disneyland in China?

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]During the past twenty years character owners have been successful in extending protection for their increasingly valuable properties. Starting with a series of cases in the previously restrictive Ninth Circuit (which includes California) there commenced a new willingness by the courts that are influential in character protection to protect graphic characters. These courts broadened the scope of copyright protection by adopting the total "look and feel" approach from trademark and unfair competition doctrines and adapted it to copyright infringement analysis. In addition, the popularity of the character, at least implicitly, began to be factored into the substantial similarity copyright infringement analysis with the result that the "feel" of the character reduced the level of similarity needed to prove copyright infringement. In Walt Disney Productions v. Air Pirates the court appeared to commingle copyright and trademark law infringement criteria by stating that the Disney characters used by the defendants had "achieved a high degree of 'recognition' and 'identification'" and that these elements helped make the characters protectable under copyright law. In addition, the court seemed to rely upon subjective criteria, that was more similar to the secondary meaning analysis frequently required in trademark infringement cases, rather than a more exacting review of the similarity of the characters.<SUP>8</SUP> [/FONT]

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