I am the mother of six children with special needs, a long-time special needs educator, and the owner of a business that provides legal review and representation of issues concerning special needs children. I frequently order items for personal and professional use from an online company called Super Duper (http://www.superduperinc.com/), a Greenville, SC, based company. Today, I learned of a frivolous legal situation led by Mattel against Super Duper, Inc., and how its roots trace back to education in South Carolina.
For almost ten years, I have been a customer and supporter of Super Duper, Inc., and not once have I EVER confused their products with those of Mattel. Mattel, a $5.4 billion PER YEAR company, believes themselves to have the right to prohibit Super Duper, Inc. from using the word "Say" in their products. To repeat, Mattel believes they are the only producer of children's products -- to include those created for the therapeutic use of children with special needs -- to use the word "Say" in the name of a product. Their reasoning? Super Duper's use of the word "Say" in their therapeutic products leads the consumer to believe that the products are produced by Mattel, the maker of the See n Say, a toy produced by Mattel in 1963.
My outrage was only exacerbated by my research. As a resident, parent, tax payer, and public educator in South Carolina, the fact that the SC Democratic Superintendent of Education Candidate, Frank Holleman, an attorney with the Wyche Law Firm in Greenville, SC, lists on his business website that a major professional accomplishment was his acting as "lead trial counsel for defendant in federal trademark trial, resulting in jury verdict in favor of defendant on counterclaim and attorneys' fee award, totaling over $3.6 million." http://www.wyche.com/attorney-bios/frank-s-holleman-iii.
The lowdown? Mr. Holleman represented the Mattel company against Super Duper -- a business born and raised in his own city, and he flaunts his win on his website whose catch phrase is, "World Class Lawyers. Deep Local Roots."
Out of the $3.6 million verdict, the attorneys' fees were $2.6 million. However, at http://www.hollemanforeducation.com/news/ you can "support public education" by donating to his Education Superintendent campaign -- the attorney with "Deep Local Roots" who represented Mattel, the largest toy manufacturer in the United States AND the same company which recently was assessed the largest fine in the history of the toy industry for knowing importing toys saturated with lead.
Super Duper, Inc., is a 100-employee, mom-and-pop South Carolina company which for the past 24 years has created innovative speech and language therapy materials for children with autism and other communication disorders. They have deep philanthropic roots in their community as well as throughout the United States.
I am familiar with the See n Say as I had one myself as a young child and my own children had one. The Super Duper products I have used are far superior both in appeal and therapeutically for use with children with special needs to ANY product I have seen by Mattel.
In my professional and personal opinion, this is frivolous and outrageous, and it is time that we stood to support a local producer of quality products against the steamrollers of Mattel and Holleman and immediately call for the courts to vacate the Super Duper vs. Mattel judgment. It is time we stood up for a quality producer of childhood learning materials from our own state as well as stood against a candidate running for an office in public education who cannot distinguish the difference between quality educational products and toys potentially tainted with lead nor the difference between "Deep Local Roots" and Deep Pockets.
I am personally boycotting Mattel products and the election of Frank Holleman and suggest that others who are outraged by this situation do the same.
For Mattel to expect to have the sole use of the word "Say" in ANY industry much less that of the special needs therapeutic product industry and for Holleman to be the lead attorney for this in his own backyard is nothing less than outrageous. I regret that Mattel has made the choice to pursue this frivolous lawsuit, and I regret even more that it was supported and made possible by someone who wants to make decisions about the education of the children of our state.
I am personally boycotting Mattel products and the election of Frank Holleman and suggest that others who are outraged by this situation do the same.
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