LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday sued a Hong Kong jewelry company it accuses of selling illegal Mickey Mouse jewelry.
The international media and entertainment conglomerate filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against the Red Earth Group, which sells jewelry online under the name Satéur.
Disney says the marketing and branding of the rings, necklaces and earrings in Satéur's “Mickey 1928 Collection” violate its trademark rights and that the Hong Kong company is deliberately trying to fool customers into thinking the pieces are official Disney merchandise.
Satéur, the suit alleges, “intends to present Mickey Mouse as its own brand identifier for its jewelry merchandise and "seeks to trade on the recognizability of the Mickey Mouse trademarks and consumers’ affinity for Disney and its iconic ambassador Mickey Mouse.”
A message seeking comment from representatives of the Red Earth Group was not immediately answered.
The lawsuit is indicative of Disney's dogged efforts to protect its intellectual property from unauthorized appropriation. Although the earliest version of Mickey Mouse entered the public domain last year after Disney's copyright expired, the company still holds trademark rights to the character.
Lawyers for Disney argue in the suit that Red Earth’s online marketing efforts “extensively trade on the Mickey Mouse trademarks and the Disney brand” with language that includes describing the jewelry as great for “Disney enthusiasts.”
Such tactics indicate Red Earth was “intentionally trying to confuse consumers,” the lawsuit says. The impression created, it says, "suggests, at a minimum, a partnership or collaboration with Disney.”
The earliest depiction of Mickey Mouse, who first appeared publicly in the film short “Steamboat Willie” in 1928, are now in the U.S. public domain. The widely publicized moment was considered a landmark in iconography going public.
The lawsuit alleges that Red Earth and Satéur are trying to use that status as a “ruse” to suggest the jewelry is legal, by dubbing it the “Mickey 1928 Collection” and saying it is being sold in tribute to the mouse's first appearance.
The centerpiece of the collection, the suit says, is a piece of jewelry marketed as the "Satéur Mickey 1928 Classique Ring,” which has a Steamboat Willie charm sitting on the band holding a synthetic stone.
But there is an essential difference between copyright — which protects works of art — and trademark — which protects a company's brand.
Even if a character is in the public domain, it cannot be used on merchandise in a way that suggests it is from the company with the trademark, as Disney alleges Red Earth is doing.
“Disney remains committed to guarding against unlawful trademark infringement and protecting consumers from confusion caused by unauthorized uses of Mickey Mouse and our other iconic characters,” Disney said in a statement Wednesday.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction against Red Earth selling the jewelry or trading on Disney's trademark in any other way, along with monetary damages to be determined later.
FILE - Mickey Mouse balloons are displayed at Disneyland Paris in Chessy, France, June 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)
BERLIN (AP) — European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.
After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb, one of the key European interlocutors between U.S. President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy, was spotted Monday morning in downtown Berlin.
Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.
Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
The U.S. government late Sunday said in a social media post on Witkoff’s account after the five-hour meeting that “a lot of progress was made.”
Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.
The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
Russia fired 153 drones of various types at Ukraine overnight Sunday into Monday, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. The air force said early Monday that 133 drones were neutralized, while 17 more hit their targets.
In Russia, meanwhile, the defense ministry on Monday said forces destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight. An additional 16 drones were then destroyed between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. local time Monday.
Eighteen drones were shot down over Moscow itself, the Russian defense ministry said.
Flights were temporarily halted at the city’s Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports as part of safety measures, officials said.
Damage details and casualty figures were not immediately available.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
“Pax Americana” refers to the U.S.’s postwar dominance as a superpower that has brought relative peace to the globe.
Merz warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.
Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
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Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland. Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.
Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, leaves through a hotel garage for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz,stands in his office in the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)
Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine, at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)
Jared Kushner, entrepreneur and former chief adviser to President Donald Trump, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right, watches Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arriving at the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)
