As an update to the long running battle over royalties for the Winnie the Pooh character, an LA court has declined to reinstate the case that was dismissed in 2004. The daughter of Stephan Slesinger (below) said she would appeal the decision to the CA supreme court and also proceed with a Federal case.
NYTimes
Disney Wants the Honey Jar Too (February 20, 2007)
Disney (although not the plaintiff) lost a court case to have the rights to the Winnie the Pooh characters returned to the family of AA Milne and illustrator E.H Shepard. Disney and the relatives were seeking to overturn an earlier case that said that Clair Milne could not void an agreement that renewed the license to Stephan Slesinger in 1983. Slesinger obtained the original rights in 1930 and in 1961 passed those rights to Disney in exchange for royalties. The Slesinger family have also been fighting Disney for more than 10 years for unpaid royalties which they estimate could exceed a $1.0billion. According to Reuters, Pooh generated over $6.0billion in retail sales in 2005 alone
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