California judge orders company to stop making Bratz dolls

The collective pout on the lips of Jade, Cloe, Yasmin and Sasha is about to become even more pronounced.

A judge in California ruled late on Wednesday that the makers of Bratz, the attitude-laden teenage dolls that exposed Barbie as a square, must immediately stop making the hit toy and recall its models from shop shelves in the new year.

The ruling sent shockwaves through toyland as the industry gears up for its busiest time of the year. In June, sales of Bratz in the US reached $3.1bn (£2.1bn) since their launch in 2001. Sales of Barbie, still America's most popular toy, fell by 15% in 2007.

The ruling comes three months after Mattel, the makers of Barbie, won a copyright case in which it argued that the Bratz concept had been developed by one of its designers. A jury agreed that Carter Bryant had come up with the original designs while at Mattel and had taken them to MGA, which launched the Bratz line in 2001. The jury awarded Mattel $10m for copyright infringement and $90m for breach of contract.

Judge Stephen Larson's ruling effectively places the Bratz brand under the control of Mattel.

"Mattel has established its exclusive rights to the Bratz drawings," Larson wrote, "and the court has found that hundreds of the MGA parties' products, including all the currently available core female fashion dolls Mattel was able to locate in the marketplace, infringe those rights."

Perhaps most troubling for fans of the Bratz extended family will be the fate of the Bratz Babyz, the Bratz Kidz, the Bratz Petz, the Bratz Boyz and the Bratz Ponyz. On her blog, Bratz girl Yasmin chose to ignore the legal fuss to focus on her busy life "with school and community stuff", and to tell her readers about her next door neighbour's new horse, Leo.

Yasmin's boss, MGA chief executive Isaac Larian, expressed surprise at the scope of the ruling and promised to appeal. "We believe ... that issuing such a broad injunction is inconsistent with the limited jury verdict and the law," he said. "MGA intends to immediately appeal the injunction."

The judge said the ruling, which could put MGA out of business, thus removing one of Mattel's chief rivals, would not take effect until February, when he rules on post-trial motions lodged by both sides.

Mattel chief executive, Robert Eckert, said in a statement: "We're extremely pleased that the court granted Mattel's motion for an injunction and ordered MGA to stop selling Bratz products that infringe on Mattel's rights."

The ruling, he added, "underscores what Mattel has said all along - that MGA should not be allowed to profit from its wrongdoing".

The ruling saw shares in Mattel rise by 5% on the New York stock exchange.

The two sides continued to argue about the scope of the ruling. MGA said that it applied to just the first four characters in the Bratz range; Mattel countered that all Bratz dolls infringe its copyright.

But even as one competitor seems set to leave the marketplace, Barbie faces other challenges to its dominance of the dollhouse. The new girls on the block, Hannah Montana and Mattel's own High School Musical range, are the second and third highest-selling dolls in the US this year.