![]() “We were buying the costume as a purple dinosaur because these kids wanted it at their birthday party,” says Vicki Williams, owner of the Rental Boutique in Santa Ana who received the letter last year. Shop owners say they assumed the dinosaurs were legal because they purchased them from a reputable costume company. It’s when it’s a purple dinosaur that it’s illegal, and it doesn’t matter what shade of purple, either,” Elsner Furman says. They might remove Barney’s head in front of the children, and Barney is real,” she says.Įven if they are not identified as “Barney,” all purple dinosaurs are an infringement, Lyons says. They might do something that might freak children out. There are a lot of things adults might do that Barney would not do. ![]() “We don’t have the ability to control who’s in the costume. Lyons does not license adult-sized costumes because it fears that even well-meaning adults might act in an un-Barney-like way, she says. 1-rated TV program for children younger than 6, she says. Lyons has taken “aggressive” action against the owners to guard Barney’s image and to protect children who “love and trust Barney,” says Elsner Furman. The Lyons Group and Lyrick Studios, which own the trademark and copyright for the dinosaur, have sent letters to costume shops around the country threatening to sue them for selling, renting or using costumes resembling Barney.ĭuring the past four years, Lyons has sent 1,000 letters to shop owners and will continue to seek damages from those who have made money off its trademark, says Susan Elsner Furman, media relations manager for Lyons and Lyrick in Richardson, Texas. ![]() Roberson used to send a big purple dinosaur to entertain kids at birthday parties but stopped because she was afraid of being sued. “We can’t even have a dinosaur character that kind of looks like him,” says Marsi Roberson, owner of Animal Crackers Entertainment in Lake Forest, which provides costumed characters for parties. Barney, the big purple dinosaur beloved by the toddler set, is a no-show at kiddie birthday parties, and if the company that licenses Barney products has its way, any adults parading around in purple dino costumes will soon become extinct.
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