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> 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 bric

> 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.

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.