News July 23, 2013 4

Web Shooter Inventor Looses Court Battle With Marvel

by Brad Douglas

The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting article about a toy inventor that recently lost a lawsuit with Marvel. Back in 1990 Stephen Kimble patented his idea for a toy that was activated via a trigger attached to a valve in the palm of a glove. He pitched the toy idea to Marvel but they passed. According to court documents Marvel went ahead and produced a similar toy. Kimble sued for copyright infringement and was awarded 3.5 percent of all sales of Spider-Man’s web shooter toys.
That agreement went along for years until the toys were produced by Hasbro. A recent judgement cut the patent owner out of future earnings on his patent toy. In the 20 years the toys been produced Kimble has made more than 20 million dollars.

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Brad Douglas

Brad created the Crawlspace back in 1998 while attending college at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He’s the webmaster and writes front page news items, and also produces, hosts and edits the podcast. He’s been collecting Spider-Man comics since the age of three and is a life-long fan of the webhead. His website has been featured in USA Today, Entertainment Weekly and on Marvel.com and inside the comics themselves. The Crawlspace is one of the first Spider-Man fan sites to ever hit the internet. Millions of people visit the site every year.
Brad has interviewed several “Spider-Celebrities” over the years including co-creator Stan Lee. He’s also interviewed actors who have portrayed Spider-Man like Paul Soles (Voice Actor from the 67 Spider-Man Cartoon), Dan Gilvezan (Spidey Voice Actor from Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends) ,Yuri Lownthal (Voice Actor from the Spider-Man PlayStation game) and Nicholas Hammond (Spider-Man 1977 Actor).

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Spider-Titles For May 2013

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4 Comments

Dan says:

July 26, 2013 at 5:27 am

This is why the guy should have pitched his idea to Hasbro instead of Marvel at the time. When it comes to original ideas, never pitched them to Marvel. Give them the recycled stuff. 🙂
WebbedSentry says:

July 25, 2013 at 10:05 am

Well yes he has clearly earned a fair bit of money, it seems harsh to cut him out now.
herbiepopnecker says:

July 25, 2013 at 8:51 am

But…it’s HIS patent.
Enigma_2099 says:

July 23, 2013 at 1:44 am

Well, I was like “pay the man,” but then I saw how much he’s already been paid.

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