>>11413082>>11413087Yeah, you really can't share the license to make the same product. It fucks over the license holders if they're both making 1:12 figures for the childrens toy aisle.
Hence McFarlane and Spinmaster having the license previously being split between them. McFarlane made the 1/10 scale figures for the boys children aisle and Spinmaster made 3.75" scale figures for the boys aisle.
The license can also be further split with the collectors/direct market license. These aren't sold in the boys aisle and instead usually at comic shops and other specialty shops (like Barnes and Noble or Gamestop). This is generally where DC Direct, NECA, Figuarts, and others would release their collector toys.
They generally plan their toy releases out so that they don't even compete for the same date/character/series/scale/style.
However, Mattel did say that they have the action figure collector license too, but what does that even mean? Since the colletor licenses are usually ultra specific (style, genre, product type, scale, release, etc), it encompasses too much for usually a broad amount of licensing deals. This is probably what McFarlane has his lawyers trying to argue right now, since his company runs DC Direct now. Either they'll still be able to produce collector figures under the DCD logo or just only be able to produce statueshit, we don't know at this point.
Stuff like McFarlane's Page Puncher and the Super Powers figures were released through DC Direct, hence also being smaller scale like Spinmaster's stuff. It wouldn't intrude on Spinmaster's license, since they're collector toys, not being sold in the boys children aisle.
