4 ms·

Lego is becoming more and more of a scumbag company. First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo w

Lego is becoming more and more of a scumbag company. First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo was a standing brick, but it could have been any brick, no Lego logo was seen or whatnot. They sued him for infringement of their trademarks anyway. That gave quite a huge media wave, I think the video of "Held der Steine" on YouTube where he lays out what happened has seven figure views. The next big hit happened yesterday when bailiffs walked in another small shop that is selling brick construction sets. Lego found that some of the figures from some chinese vendors look somewhat like their mini figures and obtained a restraining order for that shop. Bailiffs took some sets with them, the business owner was quite shaken when stating on YouTube what happened and that they will check which sets they can still sell and which not and that Lego threatened him with something like half a million Euro fine if he would violate the restraining orders. His company is called "Bluebrixx". Besides this behaviour Lego is getting more and more expensive, while the quality of the models and the part count go down. Just look at some of the regular Star Wars models for example. The "bang for the buck" is pretty bad on those.

kuschku 7y ago
> First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo was a standing brick, but it could have been any brick, no Lego logo was seen or whatnot. They sued him for infringement of their trademarks anyway. That gave quite a huge media wave, I think the video of "Held der Steine" on YouTube where he lays out what happened has seven figure views. He tried to trademark that logo and sell merchandise with it. Using stuff that looks like LEGO trademarks is fine, trademarking it and selling your own merchandise with it obviously is not.
- martin_a 7y ago
  Where's the line in "looks like LEGO trademarks"? There are lots of brick systems out there and they all look somewhat similar to Lego.
  - kuschku 7y ago
    LEGO sells clothes with a 3D 2x2 brick, isometric projection, looking at the corner, red, with the lego text on it. Which looks – except for colour and number of studs — exactly like the Held der Steine logo. Held der Steine then tried to trademark it not just as logo for youtube, but also with the explicit purpose to sell merchandise, such as clothes, with it. At this point, the trademarks conflict. The law, being horribly written, requires one of the trademark holders to either license from the other, or give up the claim. As Lego wasn’t gonna give up their claim, and Held der Steine wasn’t gonna license their logo, there weren’t exactly few options left. It’s a similar situation as with Apple vs. Apfelkind a few years back. A german store which used a silhouette of an apple as logo, which was fine. Until they tried to trademark it, not just for their store or for clothes as merchandise, but also for electronic products.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  LEGO was built on the premise of patent infringement and the blatant copying of others designs. They have a 'play nice' slogan that they use to try to pretend that they are 'playing nice' if others play nice as well but they're quick to engage their legal department. The LEGO brand is forever tarnished by this.
wodenokoto 7y ago
Logo vs lego brick for comparison: https://www.watson.de/imgdb/c6c7/Qx,A,0,0,874,491,141,7,629,424/7016122146306920 https://www.watson.de/imgdb/c6c7/Qx,A,0,0,874,491,141,7,629,...
CannisterFlux 7y ago
Not only the model quality, but the Lego bricks themselves are pretty disappointing too. If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. More models have special parts with narrow waist sections that easily snap. The c-shaped grips that hold poles either warp or snap and become useless. More and more sets come with stickers rather than printing the pattern onto the bricks like they used to do. Stickers are really lame. They never go on right and peel off at the corners easily, but if you pull them off they'll definitely leave goop behind. My kids and I still enjoy Lego despite this, but we haven't bought a new set for a long time.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  > If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. Are they really like that nowadays? When I was a child they were near indestructible.
  - mcv 7y ago
    I've never seen them just shatter. They're not indestructible, but I think they never were. More complex bricks are probably a bit more fragile, though.
  - CannisterFlux 7y ago
    Yeah, they are not nearly as good. I've had pieces snap just from having them in a box, rooting through to find other pieces, they must have snagged. And dropping regular pieces on a tiled floor from table height, had the side break! Maybe I was unlucky, but that would've been unheard of back in the 80s.
    - bonzini 7y ago
      Uh, are you sure those were Legos? I have tens of thousands of loose pieces and exactly one has been damaged in use (a clip that broke after being walked on).
    - nathankunicki 7y ago
mrarjen 7y ago
Not saying it's nice, but these are things a company like Lego needs to do, or risk losing trademarks on the iconic block type... I looked at the examples and they do show similarities to their IP so they need to sue or risk losing their own rights. For the SW Lego sets, Disney will be sure to take a big cut of that increased prices on the product. Can't really blame Lego for that either. I can't say for sure regarding quality, this might be a thing?
bhaak 7y ago
The story about "Held der Steine" looked to me like an attorney going too far. Stupid move, stupid shitstorm ensues. The design of the classical Lego minifigure OTOH is protected. It's completely legal and understandable to go after copies of that. But with "Bluebrixx", I'm not so sure if this is all. There might be more about that. Look for example at this page: https://www.bluebrixx.com/de/bluebrixxspecials/scifi https://www.bluebrixx.com/de/bluebrixxspecials/scifi This looks very much like something fishy going on. They call them "Bluebrixx-Specials" but they are clearly not original designs. What does a "classical ambulance" do in a category called "SF"? It looks eerily similar to Ecto-1, that's why. I also suppose they don't have the license to do classical Battlestar Galactica models. They should be very careful about such things.
- martin_a 7y ago
  > This looks very much like something fishy going on. They call them "Bluebrixx-Specials" but they are clearly not original designs. I'm with you on that, but can you really protect designs like these? Obviously they are trying hard to sail around paying licensing fees which I can understand and don't really see a problem with. Paying those licensing fees is mainly for marketing reasons and if you want to keep marketing costs low I see no problem in selling a "classical ambulance" instead of "Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters".
  - bhaak 7y ago
    Trademark law is lot more fuzzy than copyright law. Whereas copyright comes into existence just by creating something, trademarks are only granted after official registering. And then they can still be challenged. But with the Ecto-1-look-alike, this is still very clear to me. That's not how a NY classical ambulance looks, that's how a classical ambulance looks after being modified by the Ghostbusters. That's a significant point. Given that this is even a licensed model, I'm surprised that it isn't part of the provisional injunction.
scotty79 7y ago
> Besides this behaviour Lego is getting more and more expensive, while the quality of the models and the part count go down. I don't think that's generally true. I'm often checking price per brick when buying Technic sets and cheapest per brick came out in recent years. Star Wars is expensive because when you buy them you volunteer to pay Mickey Mouse tax.

kuschku 7y ago

> First hit this year was that they sued a small Lego shop in Frankfurt called "Held der Steine". His logo was a standing brick, but it could have been any brick, no Lego logo was seen or whatnot. They sued him for infringement of their trademarks anyway. That gave quite a huge media wave, I think the video of "Held der Steine" on YouTube where he lays out what happened has seven figure views. He tried to trademark that logo and sell merchandise with it. Using stuff that looks like LEGO trademarks is fine, trademarking it and selling your own merchandise with it obviously is not.

martin_a 7y ago
Where's the line in "looks like LEGO trademarks"? There are lots of brick systems out there and they all look somewhat similar to Lego.
- kuschku 7y ago
  LEGO sells clothes with a 3D 2x2 brick, isometric projection, looking at the corner, red, with the lego text on it. Which looks – except for colour and number of studs — exactly like the Held der Steine logo. Held der Steine then tried to trademark it not just as logo for youtube, but also with the explicit purpose to sell merchandise, such as clothes, with it. At this point, the trademarks conflict. The law, being horribly written, requires one of the trademark holders to either license from the other, or give up the claim. As Lego wasn’t gonna give up their claim, and Held der Steine wasn’t gonna license their logo, there weren’t exactly few options left. It’s a similar situation as with Apple vs. Apfelkind a few years back. A german store which used a silhouette of an apple as logo, which was fine. Until they tried to trademark it, not just for their store or for clothes as merchandise, but also for electronic products.
jacquesm 7y ago
LEGO was built on the premise of patent infringement and the blatant copying of others designs. They have a 'play nice' slogan that they use to try to pretend that they are 'playing nice' if others play nice as well but they're quick to engage their legal department. The LEGO brand is forever tarnished by this.

wodenokoto 7y ago

Logo vs lego brick for comparison: https://www.watson.de/imgdb/c6c7/Qx,A,0,0,874,491,141,7,629,424/7016122146306920 https://www.watson.de/imgdb/c6c7/Qx,A,0,0,874,491,141,7,629,...

CannisterFlux 7y ago

Not only the model quality, but the Lego bricks themselves are pretty disappointing too. If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. More models have special parts with narrow waist sections that easily snap. The c-shaped grips that hold poles either warp or snap and become useless. More and more sets come with stickers rather than printing the pattern onto the bricks like they used to do. Stickers are really lame. They never go on right and peel off at the corners easily, but if you pull them off they'll definitely leave goop behind. My kids and I still enjoy Lego despite this, but we haven't bought a new set for a long time.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
> If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. Are they really like that nowadays? When I was a child they were near indestructible.
- mcv 7y ago
  I've never seen them just shatter. They're not indestructible, but I think they never were. More complex bricks are probably a bit more fragile, though.
- CannisterFlux 7y ago
  Yeah, they are not nearly as good. I've had pieces snap just from having them in a box, rooting through to find other pieces, they must have snagged. And dropping regular pieces on a tiled floor from table height, had the side break! Maybe I was unlucky, but that would've been unheard of back in the 80s.
  - bonzini 7y ago
    Uh, are you sure those were Legos? I have tens of thousands of loose pieces and exactly one has been damaged in use (a clip that broke after being walked on).
  - nathankunicki 7y ago

mrarjen 7y ago

Not saying it's nice, but these are things a company like Lego needs to do, or risk losing trademarks on the iconic block type... I looked at the examples and they do show similarities to their IP so they need to sue or risk losing their own rights. For the SW Lego sets, Disney will be sure to take a big cut of that increased prices on the product. Can't really blame Lego for that either. I can't say for sure regarding quality, this might be a thing?

bhaak 7y ago

The story about "Held der Steine" looked to me like an attorney going too far. Stupid move, stupid shitstorm ensues. The design of the classical Lego minifigure OTOH is protected. It's completely legal and understandable to go after copies of that. But with "Bluebrixx", I'm not so sure if this is all. There might be more about that. Look for example at this page: https://www.bluebrixx.com/de/bluebrixxspecials/scifi https://www.bluebrixx.com/de/bluebrixxspecials/scifi This looks very much like something fishy going on. They call them "Bluebrixx-Specials" but they are clearly not original designs. What does a "classical ambulance" do in a category called "SF"? It looks eerily similar to Ecto-1, that's why. I also suppose they don't have the license to do classical Battlestar Galactica models. They should be very careful about such things.

martin_a 7y ago
> This looks very much like something fishy going on. They call them "Bluebrixx-Specials" but they are clearly not original designs. I'm with you on that, but can you really protect designs like these? Obviously they are trying hard to sail around paying licensing fees which I can understand and don't really see a problem with. Paying those licensing fees is mainly for marketing reasons and if you want to keep marketing costs low I see no problem in selling a "classical ambulance" instead of "Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters".
- bhaak 7y ago
  Trademark law is lot more fuzzy than copyright law. Whereas copyright comes into existence just by creating something, trademarks are only granted after official registering. And then they can still be challenged. But with the Ecto-1-look-alike, this is still very clear to me. That's not how a NY classical ambulance looks, that's how a classical ambulance looks after being modified by the Ghostbusters. That's a significant point. Given that this is even a licensed model, I'm surprised that it isn't part of the provisional injunction.

scotty79 7y ago

> Besides this behaviour Lego is getting more and more expensive, while the quality of the models and the part count go down. I don't think that's generally true. I'm often checking price per brick when buying Technic sets and cheapest per brick came out in recent years. Star Wars is expensive because when you buy them you volunteer to pay Mickey Mouse tax.