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Video-Game Suit Explores Use of Wrestling Indicia

Irell & Manella partner Steven Marenberg's client list includes a long list of Hollywood heavyweights. Pop songster Stevie Wonder, 'The Lord of the Rings' film director Peter Jackson, The Walt Disney Company, the wizards at Pixar Animation Studios ' the 52-year-old Marenberg has represented them all. He's currently lead litigator in the mammoth copyright-infringement case that Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company and a longtime Marenberg client, is bringing against MySpace, the social networking site that Universal characterizes as 'a vast virtual warehouse for pirated copies of music videos and songs.' [See the 'Counsel Concerns' column of this issue for a ruling on a motion for defense-attorney disqualification in the Universal/MySpace litigation.]

Still, there are heavyweight intellectual-property matters and then there are battles against real heavyweights. In one of Marenberg's current videogame trademark cases, the slim fivefoot-eight-inch Marenberg is up against a six-foot-three-inch, 300-pound former professional wrestling bruiser known as the Warrior. Until three years ago, Marenberg had never heard of the Warrior and knew nothing of his exploits during the 1990s as one of World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) premier stars. 'I'm not a wrestling aficionado,' explains Marenberg, who prefers tennis and soccer.

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