Best-Lock Construction Toys is a brand of
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
building bricks that are compatible with
Lego. Best-Lock Group Limited, which manufacture the bricks, is based in
Colne
Colne () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, England. Located northeast of Nelson, north-east of Burnley, east of Preston and west of Leeds.
The town should not be confused with the unrelated Colne Val ...
,
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
, England.
History
Best-Lock was founded in 1997 by Torsten Geller after he looked into the legalities of
Lego and other
Kiddicraft clones, which led him to look into Lego's past to find that Lego had copied their bricks from a British psychologist and inventor
Hilary Page
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page (20 August 1904 – 24 June 1957) was an English toy maker and inventor of Self-Locking Building Bricks, the predecessor of Lego bricks. He founded the Kiddicraft toy company.
Early life
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page ...
in the 1940s.
Best-Lock has been involved with multiple legal cases involving Lego. The company moved in 1998 against Lego's exclusivity claims to toy-block design. Best-Lock won the case in court thus allowing them to sell sets in Germany.
[ They defeated a patent challenge from Lego in 2004. In a further case in 2009, Lego was denied trademark protection for the shape of its bricks.
Best-Lock and ]Cobi Cobi or COBI may refer to:
People
* Cobi (musician) (Jacob Michael Schmidt, born 1986), an American musician
* Cobi Crispin (born 1988), an Australian wheelchair basketball player
* Cobi Hamilton (born 1990), an American football player
* Cobi Jone ...
, a Polish building block manufacturer with a strong presence in Eastern Europe and Asia, announced a merger on 2 February 2006, in which Best-Lock purchased a part of Cobi. Plans called for Best-Lock to shift manufacturing to Cobi while Cobi expanded its manufacturing facilities. The merger has since yielded co-branded building block toys. Toys are still sold under the separate labels Best-Lock and Cobi, but many Cobi sets appear in North American retailers such as Toys R' Us and Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...
under the Best-Lock brand.
In 2000, Lego filed a three-dimensional trademark for its mini-figures, which Best Lock had duplicated since 1998. Thus in 2012, Best-Lock sued to get the trademark revoked. On 16 June 2015, European Court of Justice upheld Lego's figure trademark.
Products
Best-Lock offers different sized blocks including standard blocks, Junior Blocks (young children 2–5), and Baby Blocks (For kids 0–2). Themes for standard blocks include town sets (police, fire and construction), military, pirates, farming, and Kimmy (Best-Lock sets made for females). Licensed sets include The Terminator and Stargate SG-1
''Stargate SG-1'' (often stylized in all caps, or abbreviated ''SG-1'') is a military science fiction adventure television series within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's ''Stargate'' franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, ...
themes.
See also
*Lego clone
frame, Mega Bloks building block (above) and Lego building brick (below)
Best-Lock and Lego bricks compared. From left, Best-Lock followed by Lego repeated.
A Lego clone is a line or brand of children's construction blocks which is mechanica ...
References
External links
*
Companies based in Lancashire
Construction toys
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