The Montreal-based comic book company taking superhero giant Marvel Entertainment and its parent company Disney to court for allegedly borrowing design ideas in its Iron Man and Ant-Man costumes hurdled a key legal obstacle this week.
Horizon Comics and its founders Ben and Raymond Lai are alleging that Marvel used designs from their Radix series without consent in Iron Man and Ant-Man's suits.
Horizon filed a lawsuit in the U.S. for other copyright infringements in 2015 related to Marvel's Iron Man 3 film.
That suit was dismissed in 2019.
A new suit was filed in 2021 in Quebec Superior Court alleging that Marvel used other images from Horizon in Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame.
Marvel, Disney and the other defendants sought to dismiss this claim saying Quebec Superior Court "does not have jurisdiction over the defendants," "Horizon's application is an abuse of process," and the prior ruling bars the more recent suit.
Justice Jerome Frappier dismissed Marvel's motion and the case will go forward.
"The judge dismissed all of these arguments," said the Lai brothers' lawyer Julie Desrosiers. "He said that it was not the case that this proceeding was abusive, and that that the Lai brothers had serious arguments to bring before the court with respect to the alleged infringement of their work."
The Horizon Comics' lawsuit alleges there are similarities between Marvel's Ant-man and Wasp designs and Horizon's Radix series. SOURCE: Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
Walt Disney Corporation reported revenues of $67 billion in 2021. Taking a company of that size to court is always an uphill battle, Desrosiers said, as the company's legal resources are enormous.
She feels Disney and Marvel were trying to make it too expensive for the Lai brothers to continue with their case, a tactic that worked south of the border in their prior case.
"This has always been that this kind of a David-versus-Goliath case, type of process," she said. "Marvel and Disney have tried the same thing: to exhaust the Lai brothers financially with all these motions, but it did not work because, on the contrary, the court found that the arguments of their allegations of infringement are serious and that this case should, should continue here."
Desrosiers compared her case to the Supreme Court of Canada's 2013 decision in favour of artist Claude Robinson's suit against Cinar Corporation after Cinar was found liable for ripping off the Quebec artist's "The Adventures of Robinson Curiosity" in Cinar's TV series Robinson Sucroe.
"This case seems to be quite similar to that and it's very good for my clients," said Desrosiers, who added that other artists and designers have contacted her with similar stories of their work being ripped off.
"I received so many emails from people telling me, 'The same thing happened to me. I have this character and they took it as well,'" said Desrosiers. "I think we have a quite serious case against them. It kind of gives hope as well that even though they have substantial means, if you're right, and you're ready to fight, it's not the end of the story... At least we won the first round."
The lawyers must now go through the evidence Marvel produced defending their claim, and then Desrosiers and her team will request a trial date.
