Mercis B.V. v. Sanrio Co., Ltd.
Sanrio’s rabbit Cathy was, Mercis argued, too close to Miffy: the same simple white rabbit with a small cross-stitch mouth. After losing an injunction in the Netherlands, and with the March 2011 earthquake fresh, both sides settled and gave the money to relief. As part of the settlement, Sanrio retired Cathy.
The record
- Court
- District Court of Amsterdam
- Jurisdiction
- Netherlands
- Docket No.
- not public
- Filed
- 2010
- Resolved
- 2011
- Sanrio’s role
- Defendant
- Type
- Copyright
- Claims
- Copyright infringement; Trademark infringement (Benelux)
- Counsel — plaintiff/petitioner
- not public
- Counsel — Sanrio side
- not public
What happened
Sanrio’s rabbit Cathy was, Mercis argued, too close to Miffy: the same simple white rabbit with a small cross-stitch mouth. After losing an injunction in the Netherlands, and with the March 2011 earthquake fresh, both sides settled and gave the money to relief. As part of the settlement, Sanrio retired Cathy.
Outcome
On 2 Nov 2010 the court barred sales of Cathy in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg (€25,000/day penalty, €2M cap). The parties settled worldwide on 7 June 2011: Sanrio retired Cathy, and the two companies jointly donated €150,000 to 2011 Japan earthquake relief.
The legal nuance
A Sanrio character ended by litigation. Cathy’s design traced back to an earlier Sanrio rabbit, Little Honey, from around 1973, before Hello Kitty existed. Both were scrubbed from the official lineup. The simplicity that makes a minimal white rabbit iconic also makes "substantial similarity" hard to argue, since there are only so many ways to draw one.
Sources of record