Handbags at dawn in Battle of the Barbies

There is going to be scratching and hair-pulling in Toyland. Barbie, the iconic plastic blonde bombshell, has come up with a dirty new move in the long-running legal feud with her younger, funkier playground rival, the Bratz doll.

Mattel, owner of the 47-year-old Barbie franchise, is claiming in new court papers that it in fact owns the entire Bratz range because a former employee named Carter Bryant conceived the big-headed, pouty-lipped doll while he worked as a Barbie designer.

The new claims emerged in a Mattel lawsuit against MGA Entertainment, which launched Bratz five years ago, making Barbie look hopelessly old-school and taking a significant chunk out of her sales.

MGA fought back with a bitchy statement, accusing Mattel of seeking "revenge on a few people who have chosen to work for a better, more innovative toy company after realising that Mattel has lost touch with its consumers and is hopelessly caught in a downward spiral resulting from mismanagement".

Mattel has quietly been filing patents on drawings done at Mattel by an employee who then went off to work for MGA, and added details of the patents this week to its legal complaint against MGA in a federal court in California. The suit also claims that MGA poached other employees who took with them stolen secrets.

Bratz took "girl power" to the doll market and have confirmed MGA as a significant force in the toy industry. Barbie, though, is still on course to retain her top spot as the most-requested toy for American girls this Christmas, according to the National Retail Federation.

Vital statistics

Barbie

* Created by Ruth Handler and launched in 1959 by Mattel

* 700m Barbie dolls have been sold to date

* Mattel claims there are 100,000 avid Barbie Doll

collectors globally, mostly middle-aged women

* A mint 1959 Barbie sold for $3,552.50 in 2004

Bratz

* Launched in 2001 by MGA Entertainment

* 100m Bratz dolls have been sold to date

* By 2004, Bratz was outselling its rival, although Mattel argues that it still sells more accessories

* Around 12 lines of doll have been released a year, with dolls used to launch films and music