Who doesn't enjoy Winnie the Pooh? In "The Home at Pooh Corner" A.A. Milne presented Winne the Pooh, Kanga, Tigger, Eeyore and another people that are now living in the hundred acre wood of Christopher Robin's imagination. The book, created by E.H. Sheperd, was an immediate accomplishment and in 1930's the contract for US rights was achieved between Author A.A. Milne and Illustrator Stephen Slesinger. Disney acquired the US rights in the 1960's and a legend came to be once the lively classics in the original Winnie the Pooh collection first reached theaters and in 1969 Slesinger transferred unique merchandising rights over to Disney.

Because of the nature of the Disney animated people being so different from the initial drawings, and the reputation of the Pooh Bear shows, Disney was usually the one enlisted to promote all of the Pooh merchandise including books, games, toys, loaded animals, films and a variety of different products and services from important chains to mugs to games, and the productivity of the Winnie the Pooh people became a multi-million-dollar company, a fact that didn't slip by Slesinger's heirs.

In 1991, the Slesingers sued Disney, claiming that the merchandising deal of 1969 had been violated and called for 'their share' of the earnings Pooh had thus far made, but their event was trashed when it was found that Slesinger had taken documents from Thelwell (as supported by the Author's granddaughter).

The case re-opened in 2005 when Slesinger's beneficiaries yet again attempted to gain a percentage of the merchandising gains produced by Disney in terms of Pooh Keep and the other Pooh Bear people, but at the time of 2011 Disney today owns exclusive and only rights to all or any the rights (US and Worldwide) of Winnie the Pooh and his illustrious hundred acre wood crowd.

While today's cartoon characters are exposed to any or all manner of appropriate specifications when contracts are increasingly being used, the certification specifications of the 1930's were much broader and did not contain facts for the type of production and merchandising that Pooh Bear and his cohorts were going to be subjected to. Even the turnover of merchandising rights in 1969 could not probably have foreseen the pure level of merchandise that would be generated with a packed keep and his companions.

It's the nature with this Winnie the Pooh question that's sparked legal agreements in the Animation Character Accreditation areas to keep open-ended clauses that protect any and all possible potential technologies and merchandising areas and/or options to make sure that these types of fights do not become a problem in the future.