Andrew A.J. Thomas

Andrew “A.J.” Thomas represents film and television studios and other businesses in the entertainment industry in disputes and litigation concerning their intellectual property rights to the content they’ve created. He tends to represent plaintiffs and defendants in equal amount, he said.

“It’s been an interesting practice,” Thomas said. “Sometimes were plaintiffs preventing others from infringing the clients’ intellectual property rights, and other times we’re defending … content-creators’ rights to tell stories.”

Last June, he obtained a settlement and permanent injunction for Warner Bros. Entertainment prohibiting a small Connecticut company from continuing to sponsor “virtual running clubs” and sell merchandise using trademarked and copyrighted material from Warner’s Harry Potter films and the “Gilmore Girls” television series. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. v. Random Tuesday Inc., 2:20-cv-02416 (C.D. Cal., filed March 13, 2020).

The defendant initially claimed it gave the proceeds to charity, which turned out not to be true but wasn’t a defense anyway. Even a nonprofit may not use another’s intellectual property for its business without a license, Thomas said. “A nonprofit hospital can’t become Hogwarts Hospital.”

Two months later, Thomas defended 20th Century Fox against a copyright action accusing its hit TV series “Empire” of being based on the plaintiff’s memoir about selling drugs, going to prison and finding God. Eggleston v. 20th Century Fox Corp., 2:21-cv-11171 (E.D. Mich., filed May 20, 2021).

A judge ruled there wasn’t substantial similarity between the author’s life and that of Empire’s central character. “They both spent time in prison, but everything else is different,” Thomas said.

In January, Thomas successfully represented NBCUniversal suing two companies for “trademark squatting” by registering trademarks and then selling merchandise using names of fictional businesses, such as Dunder-Mifflin, from the TV series “The Office” and “Friday Night Lights.” The settlement in the case included a permanent injunction. NBCUniversal Media LLC v. Jay Kennette Media Group LLC, 2:22-cv-04541 (C.D. Cal., filed July 1, 2022).

He was on the defense side again in a suit over two separate stage musicals based on a memoir about boys discovering rocketry in the 1950s called “Rocket Boys.” “It raised some interesting issues about how the copyright similarity tests would apply,” Thomas said. The case settled in January. Brighter Sky Productions LLC v. Marriott International Inc., et al., 1:18-cv-06723 (N.D. Ill., filed Oct. 4, 2018).

In a different sort of litigation, Thomas represented SAG-AFTRA to settle in March a four-year-old class action brought by session musicians over royalty payments. Risto v. Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, 2:18-cv-07241 (C.D. Cal., Aug. 17, 2018).

Currently, he is defending NBCUniversal and its “Back to the Future” DeLorean time machine toys in a trademark battle with a company that sells aftermarket parts for old DeLorean cars. DeLorean Motor Co. v. NBCUniversal Media LL, 2:22-cv-08823 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 5, 2022).

“Once again, I find myself in the toy department of Jenner & Block,” Thomas said.

— Don DeBenedictis