JWT and WPP sued over Microsoft Bing ad

by Matt Williams, campaignlive.co.uk 27-Aug-09, 17:30

LONDON - JWT and its parent company, WPP, is being sued over claims that the agency stole a patented product-placement idea and used it in a campaign for Microsoft's search engine Bing.

Denizen, a Delaware-based company that specialises in programme-integrated advertising, worked with WPP in 2002 to discuss possible business ventures, such as partnerships with WPP's media agencies.

Talks fell through in 2006, and both parties signed a confidentiality agreement regarding issues discussed during the meetings.

However, Denizen now alleges that WPP has breached the agreement by stealing Denizen's concept of merging the content and characters of a TV show into advertising for use in the NBC programme The Philanthropist.

The Bing-themed ads used actors from the show, and were filmed on The Philanthropist set.

Denizen alleges that JWT and WPP stole its proprietary information, as well as its trade secrets for creating integrated ads, and the knowledge needed for gaining access and rights to TV content and ways to shoot the ads.

Comments

Chris Arnold - 27/08/2009

This is just one of many cases around IP and copyright that rarely gets reported in the press but is a growing problem for the industry. The industry's great secret cost of copying others ideas. From idea theft to IP, agencies are having to be more careful about what they do. Sometimes it's just coincidence but often someone has deliberately borrowed an idea from another creative mind \(they see it as theft). The DMA are running an event on Oct 13th covering this area, one that is becoming costly. Carling faced a law suit for £6m over copying the iBeer idea from Hottris. Many other cases costing agencies over £100,000 have gone on unreported. A recent case of a young creative team who stole an idea off YouTube, the agency unaware sold it to a client, the team moved agency and the agency got sued. As they say in those cinema ads, you wouldn't steal a wallet or a purse, stealing other people's ideas is just the same.

Grilla Login - 28/08/2009

Taking another guys good idea sure beats going to the trouble of coming up with one of your own, but it can turn around and bite ya if the idea you've pillaged is at complete odds with what it is you do as a company - Just ask EDF.