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Law360 (April 23, 2020, 9:55 PM EDT ) Comedian Jeff Dunham on Thursday accused a California merchandise company of illegally using his name, face and ventriloquism characters to sell T-shirts, coronavirus face masks and other merchandise, hitting Ooshirts Inc. with a multimillion-dollar suit and vowing to donate any award to COVID-19 charities.
According to the suit filed in California federal court, Ooshirts and its owner, Raymond Lei, have been selling products featuring Dunham's trademarked and copyrighted characters for years. But now they're also trying to fraudulently profit from the pandemic by plastering his characters on masks, he said.
On top of that, Ooshirts' websites feature Dunham's name and photos of him, leading his fans to ask him whether he was trying to profit from the public health crisis by selling COVID-19 products, Dunham claimed.
"Enough is enough," Dunham said.
He called Ooshirts' purported conduct "outrageous, blatant and malicious," and said he had spent years battling infringing products on its website. It's been "a game of whack-a-mole," he said, adding that as soon as he identified infringing products in the past, Ooshirts removed them from its websites and then listed new infringing products instead. He said the websites have listed more than a thousand products featuring his characters, including Achmed, Bubba J, Peanut and Jose Jalapeno on a Stick
Jeff Dunham claims that Ooshirts Inc. has been illegally selling shirts, coronavirus masks and other merchandise using his ventriloquism characters as well as his name and likeness.
"Ripping off and exploiting the intellectual property of third parties, and duping customers into believing that they are purchasing legitimate merchandise when they're actually getting counterfeits, is, upon information and belief, defendants' business model," he said.
Dunham said he was seeking $10 million in general damages, plus $150,000 per registered copyright infringed and $2 million per trademark. He listed at least seven trademarks he has registered.
Marty Singer, counsel for Dunham, told Law360 his client plans to use proceeds from the suit as contributions to charities benefiting COVID-19 relief efforts.
According to the suit, individuals and entities that have tried to profit from COVID-19 "have been universally condemned and reviled."
He called his case against Ooshirts simple and indisputable. In particular, he pointed to a coronavirus mask Ooshirts was purportedly selling with his "crotchety old man" character, Walter.
"In a shameful effort to profit off the COVID-19 pandemic, defendants have sold and continue to sell overpriced face masks that display a counterfeited image of Walter wearing a blue hospital face mask," Dunham said.
Dunham is alleging violations of copyright and trademark law, as well as common law unfair competition and misappropriation of the right of publicity.
Ooshirts and Lei did not immediately return requests for comment late Thursday.
Dunham is represented by Martin D. Singer, T. Wayne Harman and Jake A. Camara of Lavely & Singer PC.
Counsel information for the defendants was not immediately available Thursday.
The case is Jeff Dunham v. Raymond Lei et al., case number 2:20-cv-03716, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
--Editing by Peter Rozovsky.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
