As Avatar director James Cameron and Fox can tell you, copyright infringement lawsuits can fly fast and furious around blockbusters. How far they get in the courts is often a mixed result of the statue of limitations, proximity, if the asserted similarities are unique, benign or generic, and financial resources for lawyers. In the case of a potentially multi-billion dollar complaint filed this week by Horizon Comics against Marvel and Disney over the Iron Man movies a look at the comic books as well as the law books might be in order. In their April 23 complaint, Horizon owners Ben and Ray Lai claim that the media giant ripped off Iron Man’s armor for the Robert Downey Jr starring pics from the Radix comics they created starting back in 2001.“Marvel’s Iron Man comic book character first appeared in 1963,” says the copyright infringement and unfair and deceptive business practices filing of April 23 in federal court in Massachusetts (read it here). “From that time until the first movie in the franchise was released, the comic typically depicted Iron Man wearing simple spandex-like attire and minimal armor,” notes the jury seeking compliant of 2008’s Iron Man and its mega-successful 2010 and 2013 sequels and the other box office bursting Marvel franchises Tony Stark is in. “In contrast, the Films depict Iron Man wearing a fully mechanized suit of body armor,” the laws suit adds.
