''Interlego AG v Tyco Industries Inc'' (
989AC 217, also known informally as the Lego case or the Lego brick case) was a case in
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
law that originated in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
that eventually went before the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is the highest court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies, the British Overseas Territories, some Commonwealth countries and a few institutions in the United Kingdom. Established on 14 Augus ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
.
Action
The plaintiff,
Interlego
Lego A/S (trade name: The Lego Group) is a Danish toy production company based in Billund, Denmark. It manufactures Lego-brand toys, consisting mostly of interlocking plastic bricks. The Lego Group has also built several amusement parks aro ...
AG, sued the defendant,
Tyco Industries, for copyright infringement of its Lego bricks. However, it had previously registered its design. Under section 10 of the
Copyright Act 1956
The Copyright Act 1956 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which received its royal assent on 5 November 1956. The Copyright Act 1956 expanded copyright law in the UK and was passed in order to bring copyright law of the United ...
, the right to protection as a
registered design
An industrial design right is an intellectual property right that protects the visual design of objects that are purely utilitarian. An industrial design consists of the creation of a shape, configuration or composition of pattern or color, or c ...
and copyright were not cumulative rights. The copyright was also a stronger right than the right to protection as a registered design. It had a longer duration.
Thus the plaintiff also moved for the court to determine that its bricks did not qualify for design protection under section 10 of the Copyright Act, so that they could qualify for copyright protection. To do so, the court had to apply a test to determine whether the bricks comprised a degree of aesthetic appeal, above the purely functional elements of their design, which would cause them to qualify to be registered designs.
To extend protection under the Copyright Act, the plaintiff argued that it had made revisions to its design drawings, and that as such they comprised original artistic works. The Copyright Act gave extensive protection to such drawings, including defining the making of an object from such a drawing an infringement of copyright, or that copying an object directly, without reference to its design drawings, constituted infringement of the copyright in the drawings.
Judgement
The court held that the bricks qualified for registered design protection, and thus did not qualify for copyright protection.
Lord Oliver wrote:
The court further held that design drawings were a combination of both artistic and literary works. The written matter on such a drawing comprised the literary matter, and the graphics the artistic matter.
The only changes made to the drawings were alterations to some radii and to the dimensions of some elements:
Lord Oliver held that to afford copyright protection on a copy of a work, "
ere must in addition be some element of material alteration or embellishment which suffices to make the totality of the work an original work". He stated that such an alteration or embellishment must be "visually significant", and that it is insufficient simply for the alteration to convey "information".
Thus the court held that the modifications that Interlego had made to its designs did not constitute an original work, and thus were not afforded copyright protection. Although they may have involved skill, labour, and judgement, that skill, labour, and judgement lay solely in the process of copying.
References
External links
Interlego A.G v Tyco Industries Inc & Ors (Hong Kong) full text of the decision.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Interlego V Tyco Industries
United Kingdom copyright case law
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council cases on appeal from Hong Kong
1988 in case law
1988 in Hong Kong
1988 in British law
Lego