When Albert Einstein died in 1955, there was no such thing as publicity rights. Those came along much later. Today, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which Einstein co-founded in 1918, earns about $12.5 million a year licensing his image. The Guardian has a fascinating article about image licensing and the California Celebrity Rights Act of 1985.
Computer manufacturers were especially eager to associate their products with Einstein. In 1989, Sony reluctantly paid $63,000 to use Einstein's image in an advertisement. In 1997, [celebrity publicity rights attorney Roger] Richman received word that Apple wanted to use Einstein's photograph to advertise its Mac computers alongside the slogan "Think different". After Richman had negotiated what he believed to be a fair fee of $600,000 he received a call from Apple's cofounder, Steve Jobs, demanding a reduction. "I explained that there was only one Albert Einstein," Richman wrote in his memoirs. If the fee was too high, he said, Jobs could license Mae West instead: "She thought different also." Jobs paid up.
Despite Richman's best efforts, some "seriously offensive" products, as he saw them, reached the market. When Richman discovered that a chain of stores owned by Universal City Studios sold a sweatshirt with the slogan "E=mc2: Shit Happens", he successfully had the sweatshirt banned, and forced Universal to pay $25,000 in damages. Richman later took umbrage at Command & Conquer, the video game series launched in 1995 by Electronic Arts, in which players could, in his words, "click a few keys that result in Adolf Hitler killing Albert Einstein". Richman wanted EA to add a sticker to each box warning of antisemitic content. EA counterclaimed that fictional writing about historical characters was a first amendment right that superseded the right of posthumous publicity. The parties settled out of court.