User blog:ARTaylor/Stan Lee Media Files Lawsuit

Stan Lee Media Inc. filed a lawsuit to win back the rights to characters. Despite numerous court losses, the company Stan Lee founded in the late 90s is still trying to get the rights to characters like Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. On Tuesday, they filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company. SLMI argues that Lee did not properly assign the characters to Marvel and never recorded the agreement with the United States Copyright Office.

SLMI has filed similar suits, and lost, in Colorado, New York, and California. In the California ruling, Judge Wilson addressed why he wouldn't allow SLMI to go forward with a lawsuit against Stan Lee: res judicata, which the judge defined as barring lawsuits based on "any claims that were raised or could have been raised in a prior action." Despite likely facing the same problems, SLMI claims to be entitled to proceed "based upon Disney's independently actionable conduct which occurred after April 2009, regardless of the outcome of SLMI's appeal to the 9th Circuit in the 2007 Case."