Judge lets family keep Winnie the Pooh

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By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A federal judge in Los Angeles has rejected a Walt Disney Co.-backed attempt to strip rights to the "Winnie the Pooh" character from the estate of long-time Pooh licensee Stephen Slesinger, according to court documents made public on Friday.

In a written order issued on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper granted the Slesingers’ motion to dismiss the case, in which the granddaughters of Pooh author A.A. Milne and illustrator E.H. Shepard, sued to terminate the Slesingers’ rights to the character and reassign them to Disney.

Disney was not a party to the case, but the company paid legal expenses for both women, according to Disney’s attorney Daniel Petrocelli.

Petrocelli said the ruling "has no bearing whatsoever on Disney’s rights to Pooh," nor on a 2004 California state court judgement dismissing the Slesingers’ long-standing royalty claims against Disney.

Slesinger’s widow and daughter have been battling Disney in California state court for more than a decade over what they claim are billions in unpaid royalties from Pooh, which generated more than $6 billion (3 billion pounds) in retail sales in 2005.

That state court case is on appeal and a settlement does not appear likely.

"If there were a reasonable view of their .....continued below

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The federal case also appears at a standstill as a result of Thursday’s ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the federal case and let stand decisions by two lower courts that Clare Milne could not void a 1983 agreement renewing the Slesingers’ licence.

Cooper’s order on Thursday rejected similar claims by Shepard’s granddaughter, Harriet Jessie Minette Hunt, who must now decide whether to appeal the case, Petrocelli said.

Stephen Slesinger, a New York television and film producer, obtained the exclusive merchandising and other rights to the Pooh works from A.A. Milne in 1930.

Slesinger and Milne’s widow passed those rights to Disney in 1961 in exchange for royalties from the sale of Pooh products.

The Slesingers last month also filed a claim with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, seeking to cancel a number of trademarks they claim Disney illegally took out on Pooh.