If you ever played with, owned, or wanted a Super Soaker, you have this guy to thank for fun filled summers.
You might not know him but Lonnie Johnson, the creator of the Super soaker, a water toy gun, has been awarded $72.9 million dollars in Hasbro lawsuit.
ACJ reported that Johnson was underpaid royalties by Hasbro for products covered by his Nerf line from 2007 to 2012.
Johnson, a nuclear engineer and former NASA scientist, founded his company in 1989. There was a breach of contract between Hasbro and Johnson, when the toy making company did not honor its 1996 contract with the toy creator.
The agreement was that Hasbro would pay Johnson Super Soaker royalties of 2 percent for “three-dimensional” products based on what the toy looked like and 1 percent for “two dimension visual representations.”
It appears the toy company did not keep their end of the bargain and sold water guns similar to Johnson’s, while possibly using the man’s technology.
Although Johnson could not be reached for comment, his attorney Leigh Baier said the former NASA scientist is happy with the verdict.
“In the arbitration we got everything we asked for. The arbitrator ruled totally in Lonnie’s favor.”
According to Yahoo! Finance Johnson had originally licensed the Super Soaker to Larami Corporation, which was acquired by Hasbro later on. The popular toy gun generated more than $200 million dollars its first two years on the market. The total sales of the line are estimated at nearly $1 billion.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
