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Comic-Book Rights Get Close Look

By Marcia Coyle
February 28, 2008

As a child, Geoffrey Gerber grabbed comic books out of his dentist's treat bag after checkups. As an intellectual-property partner at Husch Blackwell Sanders, he grabs comic books ' key elements now in a substantial portion of his practice ' out of his litigator's case. 'There's a tremendous amount of comic-book litigation out there,' says Gerber, who practices in St. Louis for the newly merged firm. He adds that comic books, which hit it big in the 1930s as mainstream media, are 'fairly new media' in the scope of entertainment.

East of the Mississippi, Mark Zaid, a partner at Washington, DC's Krieger & Zaid, may sometimes feel as if he lives in a superhero comic book with a practice focusing primarily on national security/intelligence and whistleblower challenges. But outside of his vocation, his passionate avocation is collecting comic books.

Both Gerber and Zaid are watching closely as the courts have begun to work through difficult issues related to ownership rights and transfers of ownership in what is today a multimedia, multibillion-dollar business built upon those once slim, easily rolled-up, eagerly anticipated comic books.

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