Merchandising rights let a rights holder license third parties to produce goods — apparel, toys, collectibles, accessories — bearing a character, brand, trademark, or a person's likeness. Disputes arise over unauthorized production and sale of merchandise outside any licensing relationship (counterfeiting or bootlegging), over whether a licensee's actual products exceeded the categories or territories authorized in its license, and over royalty accounting disagreements similar in kind to music royalty disputes but applied to physical or digital goods sales instead of streams or units sold.

Merchandising disputes frequently combine several overlapping IP theories at once — trademark infringement for unauthorized use of a protected mark, copyright infringement for unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted character art, and right-of-publicity claims where a real person's likeness is involved — since a single unauthorized product can implicate all three simultaneously depending on what exactly it depicts and how it is marketed. Untangling which theory actually applies to which element of the disputed product is often the first analytical step.

Juricratic models a merchandising dispute as potentially multi-theory from the outset, with separate dials for trademark, copyright, and publicity-rights exposure where applicable, rather than collapsing the analysis into a single generic infringement claim, since each theory carries its own elements and defenses.

Studios, brands, and licensing agencies use merchandising rights analysis to structure license agreements with clear category and territory limits, and to evaluate enforcement options when unauthorized merchandise appears in the market. Counterfeit enforcement in particular often moves on an expedited basis given the speed at which unauthorized goods can be produced and distributed once a design is copied.