Yesterday, an artist named Jayme Gordon slapped DreamWorks with a lawsuit for allegedly stealing his idea for a work titled Kung Fu Panda Power. Gordon, who is notably not the first to sue the company over this movie, claims that DreamWorks used both his title as well as characters that bore striking similarities to ones that he drew for the movie Kung Fu Panda.
According to Gordon, he submitted his illustrations first to Disney and later to DreamWorks, though nothing came of either submission. He is now asserting copyright infringement due to having supposedly registered his own illustrations with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2000.
The curious part about this whole affair is that DreamWorks is currently fighting a lawsuit battle with another defendant who also claims the company stole his ideas. Terence Dunn, the man in question, is a writer who says that he submitted an idea for a “spiritual kung-fu fighting panda bear” during phone conversations with DreamWorks executives in 2001. Dunn recently won a small victory and is currently gathering evidence to support his claims that the company made millions – over 600 million, in fact – from his ideas. Perhaps it was partially Dunn’s success that spurred Gordon to attempt a lawsuit as well.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, GeekTyrant