[Dan Stryffeler]

I don't know if this clears anything up, (text below is from the earlier suit), I fell asleep before I could read all the way through it.

I'm no lawyer, but if the first suit was dismissed because Disney, not Halicki, had rights to "Eleanor", than Disney subsequently doing a quit claim would give those rights back to Halicki for the new suit???

From the web...

The widow of the producer-director of the 1974 film "Gone in 60 Seconds" has filed an opening brief with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking reversal of a lower court's dismissal of her copyright and trademark infringement claims against legendary carmaker Carroll Shelby over use of a replica "star" car from the 2000 Disney remake.

In November 2005, U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero dismissed Denice Shakarian Halicki's lawsuit against Shelby. Otero found, among other things, that only the Walt Disney Co. and its Hollywood Pictures, which produced the 2000 film, had standing to assert claims against Shelby, who partnered with a car manufacturer to recreate the original car used in the remake.

Halicki inherited the rights to the original film and the car nicknamed "Eleanor" -- a 1971 Ford Mustang that was made to resemble a 1972 Fastback Mustang -- after her husband H.B. Halicki died in 1989 in a freak accident on the set of "Gone in 60 Seconds 2."

After a legal battle with her late husband's family, Halicki sold remake rights to Disney in 1995. The remade film was released in 2000 and starred Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie.

As part of the deal, Halicki and Disney agreed she retained the rights to the original film and the right to merchandise the original Eleanor.

In the 2000 remake, Eleanor is a 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT-500. Shelby, who designed his namesake car and owns rights to it, was aware that the new Eleanor was a version of his classic car, but never sued Disney over the use of it in the film.

After the remake's release, Shelby submitted a trademark application for "Eleanor" for dye-cast metal toy cars based on the remake's Eleanor. He also registered "Eleanor" for "vehicles, namely automobiles engines for automobiles and structural part for automobiles."

Carmaker Unique Motor Cars also filed an application for the "Eleanor" trademark. Shelby and Unique eventually teamed to create Eleanor remake cars that sold for $109,000-$189,000.

But Halicki claims both Shelby and Unique Motors are using her "Gone in 60 Seconds" and "Eleanor" marks to promote their replicas without her permission.

In a 77-page opening brief filed April 16, Halicki says the lower court, which criticized her for failing to register "Eleanor" until seven months after filing suit, "overlooked a basic reason, independent of the agreement, why Halicki has standing to sue: to protect Halicki's longstanding common law rights to the unregistered trademarks. Those rights apply, no matter what the remake Eleanor looks like, because they concern the defendant's use of words not a visual appearance."

Additionally, Halicki contends the defendants have no fair use defense for their "outright appropriation of Halicki's marks."

Shelby currently owns six U.S. trademarks consisting of the name "Shelby" for automobiles and other related products.

Though he elected not to sue Disney, Shelby did file a counterclaim against Halicki for trademark infringement for the unauthorized use of the GT-500 knockoff in the film because Halicki's husband was credited as a producer on the remake.

Otero dismissed those claims on a summary judgment motion by Halicki. Deadline to file an opening brief for that appeal is Aug. 13, according to the court docket.

The brief was filed by Timothy Coates and Jens Koepke of Greines Martin Stein & Richland in Beverly Hills.

The case is Halicki v. Carroll Shelby International Inc., 06-55806.