Lego Clone
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

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 mechanically compatible with
Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...
brand blocks, but is produced by another manufacturer. The blocks were originally patented by
The Lego Group 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 aroun ...
in 1961 as "toy building bricks", and the company has since remained dominant in this market. Some competitors have moved to take advantage of Lego brand recognition by advertising their own products as compatible with Lego, with statements such as "compatible with leading building bricks". The last underlying patents of the brick design expired in 1978, opening the field to rivals.


Legal challenges

At least two of the largest clone manufacturers have been challenged in court by Lego. The lawsuits have been mostly unsuccessful, for courts have generally found the functional design of the basic brick to be a matter of
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
rather than
trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...
law, and all relevant Lego patents have expired. Lego itself originally copied their bricks from 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 late 1940s. Lego and Tyco Industries fought in US courts over Tyco's line of interlocking bricks in the 1980s with Tyco prevailing. On August 31, 1987, the US District Court ruled that Tyco could continue making Super Blocks, its Lego clone bricks, but ordered Tyco to stop using the Lego trademark and not to state that they were "Lego, but only cheaper". In Lego's Hong Kong suit against Tyco Super Blocks, Lego received an injunction forcing Tyco to stop cloning Lego brick designed after 1973. Tyco was also being sued at the time by Lego in Austria, Italy and Canada. Lego sued the Canadian company
Mega Bloks Mega Brands Inc. (formerly Mega Bloks Inc. and Ritvik Holdings) is a Canadian children's toy company currently owned by Mattel. Mega Bloks, a line of construction set toys, is its most popular product. Its other brands include Mega Construx, Meg ...
on the grounds that its use of the "studs and tubes" interlocking brick system was a violation of trademarks held by Lego. On November 17, 2005, the
Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...
upheld Mega Bloks' right to continue selling the product in Canada. A similar decision was reached by the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
's
Court of First Instance A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance w ...
on November 12, 2008, upholding an EU regulatory agency's reversal of opinion following an objection by Mega Bloks against a trademark awarded to Lego in 1999. Mega Bloks won a case at the EU's top court in 2010 against Lego's trademark registration of a red toy building brick. On September 14, 2010, the European Court of Justice ruled that the 8-peg design of the original Lego brick "merely performs a technical function ndcannot be registered as a trademark." The English company
Best-Lock Construction Toys Best-Lock Construction Toys is a brand of plastic building bricks that are compatible with Lego. Best-Lock Group Limited, which manufacture the bricks, is based in Colne, Lancashire, England. History Best-Lock was founded in 1997 by Torsten Gel ...
sued Lego in German courts in 2004 and 2009. The German Federal Court denied Lego trademark protection for the shape of its bricks in the latter case. The Lego Group did score a success in 2002, when its Swiss subsidiary Interlego AG sued the Tianjin CoCo Toy Co., Ltd. company for
copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
. A claims court found many CoCo sets to be infringing; CoCo was ordered to cease manufacture of the infringing sets, publish a formal apology in the ''
Beijing Daily ''Beijing Daily'' () is the official newspaper of the Beijing municipal committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Founded on October 1, 1952, it has since 2000 been owned by the Beijing Daily Group, which also runs eight other newspapers. It ...
'', and pay a small fee in damages to Interlego. On appeal, the
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
High People's Court upheld the trial court's ruling. In 2000, Lego filed a three-dimensional trademark for its mini-figures, which Best Lock had duplicated since 1998. In 2012, Best Lock sued to get the trademark revoked. On June 16, 2015, European Court of Justice upheld Lego's figure trademark. Lego had in 2009 filed its copyright claims into a U.S. Customs database that led to the seizure of Best-Lock shipments coming in from Asia. In October 2011, Lego filed in US District Court in Hartford filed against Best-Lock over the mini-figure trademark. In 2011, Lego sued Guangdong Jumbo Grand Plastic Moulding Industrial over its BanBao brand's copycat packaging. The two companies settled their case out of court with Guangdong agreeing to create unique packaging and a new figure, ToBees. In 2016, Lego announced that it would be taking legal action against the Chinese company
Guangdong Loongon Guangdong Loongon Animation & Culture Co., Ltd. (), often referred to as Loongon, is a Chinese children's toy manufacturer based in Guangdong and founded in 2003. Loongon and its family of brands, including Lepin and Cogo are known for producing L ...
, which manufactures the brand Lepin, for selling exact replicas of existing Lego products (including box-art). In 2019 Lego sued Lakeshore Learning Materials for violating its minifigure trademark. In 2020 Lego was successful in blocking Zuru from selling its own version of minifigures, the court finding that Zuru infringed upon Lego's trademark.


Brands

*
K'Nex K'Nex is a construction toy system founded by Joel Glickman. It was first introduced in America in 1992. K'Nex is designed and produced by K'Nex Industries Inc. of Hatfield, Pennsylvania. K'Nex was purchased by Florida-based company Basic Fun ...
sets have included compatible bricks since 2008. *Ramagon, by
Discovery Toys Discovery Toys is a multi-level marketing company specializing in educational toys. Its products are sold in the U.S. and Canada, and its headquarters are in Livermore, California. The company was purchased by Avon Products in 1997 and became a ...
, has some panels with compatible studs


See also

*''
Interlego AG v Tyco Industries Inc ''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 law that originated in Hong Kong that eventually went before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in ...
''


References

{{Reflist clone Construction toys Copyright infringement