SCREEN SIREN SUES COREL
By SIMON TUCK
Ottawa Sun
ÿ The line-up to sue Corel Corp. has grown again.
ÿ Hedy Lamarr, the famously reclusive screen siren of the 1940s, is the latest to take the Ottawa-based software firm to court.
ÿ Lamarr, 85, who lives in Altamonte Springs, Calif., is suing Corel for allegedly using her name and image on its Internet site for graphic-design software and on the box cover for CorelDraw 8.
ÿ That makes Corel the target of at least four ongoing lawsuits at a time when the embattled firm is trying to focus its energies on turning around its troubled business.
ÿ Lamarr, the sultry, sophisticated brunette star of such hits as Samson and Delilah, is seeking at least $21,000 Cdn and as much as $355,000.
ÿ "The plaintiff's peace of mind has been disturbed, she has been humiliated and embarrassed, her right of privacy has been violated," the lawsuit now in U.S. District Court says.
ÿ The suit asks that the company be forbidden from further using her name or image.
ÿ Neither Lamarr's lawyer, Michael McDonnell, nor the company's California attorney, Kathryn Fritz, could be reached for comment.
ÿ But company spokesperson Nicole Sanford issued a statement saying Corel doesn't "agree with any of the claims being advanced by the plaintiff.
ÿ "Corel has not commercially exploited Ms. Lamarr's image. Her image is not being used in an endorsement context and users purchase CorelDraw 8 because of the features and functionality that this software product contains."
ÿ In addition to causing the company another headache, the legal action could cause John Corkery, the image's creator, to lose the $250,000 grand prize he won for the work at the 1996 World Design Contest.
ÿ Decades removed from the peak of her acting career, Lamarr was honored last year with an award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for patenting an anti-jamming device for radio-controlled torpedoes. A version of the technology is now used for cellular phones.
ÿ This latest matter brings Corel's outstanding lawsuit tally to at least four. The other three are:
ÿ * Micrografx Inc. of Texas is suing Corel to stop it from selling its latest version of Print House Magic 3, alleging it infringes the "look and feel" of its American Greetings CreataCard software. The matter is in court again today in Dallas for an injunction hearing.
ÿ * Some shareholders are after Corel on a claim the company misled investors about its financial performance in 1997 while senior officers sold their personal holdings at inflated prices including Corel CEO Michael Cowpland who sold $20.5 million of stock one month before the share price tumbled 40% after Corel said it would post big losses in its third and fourth quarters.
ÿ * U.K.-based Bridgeman Art Library Ltd., which owns the reproduction rights to the Mona Lisa and dozens of other art classics, is suing Corel for using the works in a line of its CD-ROMs.
ÿ Bridgeman, which filed its suit in August, may be seeking as much as $12 million.
ÿ Duncan Stewart, an analyst with Tera Capital Corp. in Toronto, has said many software copyright matters fall into grey areas. But the firms being sued are usually in good shape, he said, as long as their executives can prove they believed they weren't doing anything illegal.
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