Two people tied to an Anaheim business must pay nearly $80,000 for violating copyright protections on Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse products, OC Weekly has learned.
A federal judge inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana this month determined that Carlos Rocca and Roxana Saltor of Inka Imports (a.k.a. Inka Arts) improperly sold items with “substantially identical likenesses” to the three internationally popular cartoon characters.
U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Staton Tucker also granted Disney Enterprises Inc., owner of the Mickey and Minnie Mouse rights, and Sanrio Inc., owner of the Hello Kitty empire, a permanent injunction against Rocca, Saltor and their business, which has been a member of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce.
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Because the defendants abandoned their fight against the judgment and injunction late last year, Tucker determined that the plaintiff's factual allegations were valid and granted them all requested relief, including $75,000 in statutory damages and $4,600 in legal fees–plus interest if the amount isn't timely paid.
According to court records, Rocca has also used the name Carlos Salos, and Saltor has used Roxana Rocca and Roxana Salos.
The plaintiffs filed their federal lawsuit in December 2011 and pushed for the injunction 11 months later, after discovering the defendants were not negotiating a resolution in “good faith.”
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
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