Winnie the Pooh rights holder trying to force Disney to cancel trademark registrations

In the latest move in a long struggle with Walt Disney Co. over the rights to A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, Stephen Slesinger Inc. petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Disney's trademark registrations over the 80-year-old bear and his friends.

Stephen Slesinger Inc. is a film production company named after the literary agent who bought merchandising and other rights to Winnie the Pooh from Milne in the 1930s. The company sued Disney in 1991 claiming that Disney owed it several hundred million dollars in royalties for Pooh movies and merchandise. Slesinger also sought to cancel its 1983 licensing agreement with Disney, citing alleged contract breaches. The case was dismissed in 2004, but Slesinger is appealing the dismissal.

In 2002, Disney's entertainment unit and Milne's granddaughter filed suit against Slesinger to terminate A.A. Milne's grant of the Pooh rights to the literary agent and his company. A district court ruled against Disney and Clare Milne's right to terminate Slesinger's rights, and an appeals court affirmed the district court's ruling. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Disney's appeal.

Disney spokesman Jonathan Friedland said the allegations in Slesinger's petition to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are same they've made in their earlier case that was dismissed.
"This is by no means anything more than the 'same old, same old,'" he said.