Maybe it's time for Intellectual Property Law Barbie, suggests the L.A. Times, reporting on artist Tom Forsythe's legal victory over Mattel. Forsythe took photographs of food chain barbie, in which "Barbie is about to be destroyed or harmed by domestic life in the form of kitchen appliances, yet continues displaying her well known smile, disturbingly oblivious to her predicament." The Ninth Circuit held that this was fair use of the copyrighted Barbie image and fair use of the Barbie trademark and trade dress. "Allowing Forsythe’s use serves the aims of the Copyright Act by encouraging the very creativity and criticism that the Act protects."

Fashionable pink hats off to Forsythe and his defenders at Howard, Rice and the ACLU. Plus a side note of thanks to Mattel for getting itself into such wonderful scrapes. As Judge Kozinski put it in Barbie's battle with the band Aqua, "The parties are advised to chill."