Frankenstein vs. Universal Studios vs. Copyright

Although the story of Frankenstein is still in the public domain, the monster is not under copyright protection. After the 1931 film of the same name, Universal Studios re-copyrighted Frankenstein's monster since the novel didn't give the Creature an official appearance. Where do you think the green skin, bolt-necked, stitches and flat-top head come from? Yep, Universal Studios themselves. Unfortunately, they found loopholes in suing other studios if their design looked too familiar to theirs such as Hammer's Frankenstein movie series and Monster High's Frankie Stein.