It’s the sort of thing that Ted, the foul-mouthed teddy bear in Seth MacFarlane’s hit comedy, would no doubt treat with withering disdain: MacFarlane is being sued by an inventor of a talking bottle opener for infringing his copyright with promotional Ted merchandise.
Michael Cram claims that he invented the no-button bottle opener as well as the talking beer mug, and has merchandise partnerships with Nascar and the NFL amongst others to exclusively furnish fans with his banter-inducing product lines. He alleges that MacFarlane – along with Universal, Media Rights Capital and US chain Target – has nicked his idea for a bottle opener packaged up with special edition Ted DVDs.
Cram, who says he has sold 10 million of the openers across various stores, already has a licensing deal with MacFarlane’s animated sitcom Family Guy, and therefore argues that the accused are well aware of the product being his intellectual property.
It’s the second Ted-based lawsuit MacFarlane has had to face, after a small production company accused him of copying their character Charlie the Abusive Teddy Bear. Like Ted, Charlie lives in a “human, adult world with all human friends ... has a penchant for drinking, smoking, prostitutes, and is a generally vulgar yet humorous character.”
Ted 2, the film’s sequel, is being released on June 26. Once again it stars Mark Wahlberg as Ted’s best human friend, who has to help Ted father a child with his new, also-human wife – co-stars include Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried.
