Melville firm sues to sell Einstein costume

In the somewhat morbid but highly profitable dead celebrity market, Albert Einstein, it seems, is big. Bigger than Marilyn Monroe or James Dean.

And now the white-haired physicist's lasting, lucrative fame is at the center of a legal battle pitting a small Long Island costume company against a celebrity-rights agency owned by Bill Gates and an Israeli university.

Forum Novelties Inc. of Melville wants the right to continue selling its Albert Einstein Heroes in History Instant Disguise Kit. The kit contains a curly white wig and white mustache. It retails for $12 on Amazon.com.

Forum Novelties, of Walt Whitman Road, filed suit last month in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Forum says it took action because the sole heir of Einstein's estate, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, had threatened to sue the company.

The lawsuit also names Gates' GreenLight Llc, a division of his Corbis photo image library, which handles Einstein licensing for Hebrew University.

In the lawsuit, Forum says, "Albert Einstein did not actively commercialize nor exploit his celebrity during his lifetime."

Therefore, Forum says, Hebrew University "does not have a right of publicity to assert. HUJ cannot 'inherit' rights from Albert Einstein which did not exist at the time of his death."

The suit says that since Einstein lived in New Jersey when he died, that state's law governs trademark disputes. And New Jersey law doesn't allow heirs to assert trademark rights that a decedent did not exercise while alive, the suit says.

GreenLight said in a statement Thursday that it "is required to ensure that any third party uses of Einstein's image, likeness and trademarks are approved by and authorized by his estate. Forum Novelties did not request or receive approval for its use of Einstein's likeness."

In an interview Sunday on "60 Minutes," a GreenLight executive said licensing of Einstein photos and related products was the agency's biggest money earner - "bigger than Marilyn Monroe or James Dean."