Lego Loses Its Unique Right To Make Lego Blocks

tsa writes "The European Department of Justice has decided that the Danish company Lego does not have exclusive rights to the lego building block anymore (sorry, it's in Dutch). Lego went to court after a Canadian firm had made blocks that were so like lego blocks that they even fit the real blocks made by Lego. The European judge decided that the design of the lego blocks is not protected by European trademarks and so anyone can make the blocks." If true, hopefully this will open doors for people interested in inexpensive bulk purchase of bricks of specific sizes and colors. Perhaps at long last I can build a life-sized Hemos statue for my office.

Cheap = Good for parents

[TrickFred]

My kids have been playing with Mega Bloks for years. When you can buy big buckets of them for $20 when Lego costs $100 or more for the bigger sets, well, the choice is obvious.

ISO Standard

[ryanguill]

I think they ought to take the ruling in stride and just open source the bricks. Make them an ISO standard, but continue to provide quality over quantity. Then let the Canadian company do the cheap bricks so that we can build whatever we want out of bulk. Wish they would do this with the mindstorm stuff too!

OLS

[Ambiguous Coward]

So, what Lego needs to do now is publish the OLS, or Open Lego Standard. Seriously, when it becomes obvious you're going to lose the battle, maybe it's time to embrace the alternative? Instead of fighting to keep your ideas out of the hands of others, fight to make sure that *everyone* uses your idea. It makes your assets valuable in a different way. This way, they'll still have control over the standard, and if products meet the standard, they get branded with "OLS Compliant!" and consumers know that if they buy "OLS Compliant!" parts, they'll work with their other "OLS Compliant!" parts, which makes consumers very happy, which makes the standard valuable.

-G

Re:English translation

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Lego is unable to retain its trademark

• on the shape of the blocks

(or, in particular, the red, 2x4 block). So it sounds like others will be able to make compatible blocks.

Had Lego lost their trademark on the Lego name, that would have been much worse.

brand name = quality

[smellsofbikes]

I have mixed feelings about this. I have 38 years' worth and hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks, which cost an enormous amount, and it'd sure be nice to get vats of cheap bricks so I can build some of the things I want. (I'm halfway through making a 3-D printer using chocolate, that has a working space of about 9 cubic feet, and boy does that take a lot of blocks.)

But at the same time, companies will rush into the space formed by LEGO losing their trademark, build cheap bricks, outcompete LEGO, LEGO will go out of business, and then we'll be stuck with lots of cheap imitators who aren't making the beautiful stuff LEGO created, and that could end up destroying exactly what makes LEGO worthwhile.

There is a value to having a single entity driving a market -- a planned economy in miniature.

Re:Cheap = Good for parents

[dubbreak]

Exactly. This is old news. Mega Blocks have been around for years and this issue came up in north america quite a while ago. Lego lost their suit because they don't have a patent on the block design. Claiming that a block the same shape and size is a trademark infringement is a bit of a reach. The proper IP vehicle would have been a patent (though maybe the lego block design was unpatentable?).

Re:brand name = quality

[zappepcs]

Perhaps, but that economy was built on the quality and diversity of product, not simple market forces. It's kind of like Walmart. They have all the stuff that people normally buy, or most of it, and at cheap prices. When you want something that people don't normally buy, you have to shop somewhere else. So, yes, that drives the price up, but also creates special products.

I have concerns about imitators diluting the value of the market that Lego has built, to the point that it is no longer viable to create the special parts that Lego does create. I'm not talking about flag poles for ships or castles. Rather I'm talking more of the technic line of parts. If you want active models or robots etc. you need special parts, not just blocks. For example: to build a car Lego provides many wheels/tires/tank treads, Ackerman steerage, differential gearing, shock absorbers etc. The Lego gear-motors are awesome. Lego provides gears, axles, chains, even flex-shafts, worm-gears and housings, pneumatics, .... In fact, blocks are good, but to make really awesome geeky stuff you need all those special parts. I hope this does not mean an end to the specialty parts.

It would truly be the end of an era if those specialty parts go out of production.

Re:Cheap = Good for parents

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is the crux of the issue, IMHO.

Pro: More companies will produce LEGO compatible parts, bring prices down and push availability up.

Cons: LEGO has an incredibly high standard of quality for their product, and you can pretty much bet no other company will have that same commitment to quality.

You get what you pay for.

That said, though... Does this include their TECHNIC line of parts? 'cause they really don't seem to be producing the kits they used to. I wouldn't mind more bulk / non-specific project style boxes being available.
=Smidge=

Re:English translation

[gregbot9000]

Well, I'm surprised they were able to have anything like that this long. They have been around 50 years, any patent should have ran out years ago. Interesting they would try to trademark the block, which doesn't run out, good thing it didn't work, for the consumer at least.

I see Lego announcing a change in which country it resides in, to one more favorable towards corporations in trademark laws. That or outsourcing few plants to China to stay competitive.

And whats with all the toy stories and polls? Is /. gearing up for some big holiday push?

Re:Cheap = Good for parents

[Arthur B.]

Probably not, Lego factories are entirely robotized. Labor costs are not a big part of the production cost.

That being said, your consuming choices reflect ignorance of economics, stick to selfish choices, you're smart enough to make those.

Re:Bets on how long Legos exist?

[khellendros1984]

I've always had respect for Lego. I feel like their prices are high because they refuse to take the cheap-ass manufacturing shortcuts (like production in a 3rd world country). They sacrifice price for quality, and I find that admirable. Not to mention the fact that they are providing jobs within their own country.

Re:Cheap = Good for parents

[Fallingcow]

I got a huge Mega Blocks tyrannosaurus set one year for Christmas.

I never managed to assemble it--not for lack of trying, but because the blocks weren't capable of supporting the structure. Legos would have done it, no problem, but the Mega Blocks invariably came apart around 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through. Any more, and they'd fall apart under the weight. My parents even tried glueing some parts when they saw how much it sucked, but that didn't help; it would just break in different places.

No grip. Can't build anything big with them. Certainly can't move even mid-sized things constructed from them, let alone play with your constructions. LAME.

Re:Cheap = Good for parents

[Anonymous Coward]

It was in fact patentable iirc and patented, and it did expire. Shrug. Lego should get a life - they still make the best _quality_ blocks, using plastic that apparently doesn't age rapidly (unlike cheap-ass megablox). Fully lego-compatible pieces have been on sale here *in europe* since the late 1980s IIRC (it's just easier to distort the market in the USA due to even more ridiculously pro-corporate laws there). Fancy restaurants still do well even though McDonalds exists. Apple still exists even though PCs do. etc. etc.
Lego should just position itself as the high-grade high-quality block maker and keep on trucking. Oh wait, they already did. Shrug.

It's not irrational for them to fight it in the USA - what have they got to lose by trying to take maximal advantage of the shitty system? - but at the same time it's not the end of the world for lego.

 

Re:End of legoes

[moderatorrater]

Why not? Any company that wants to compete with them will still have to turn a profit, which means that they won't be able to drive Lego out of business unless Lego's simply less competitive. It'll be decades before the word "Lego" is no longer synonymous with building blocks that snap together. Further, they retain the rights to the "Lego" name, just not to the blocks themselves, so they'll still have a ridiculous amount of mindshare. If you're going to release buildable models, do you want to release them under the name of "Lego", or do you want to release them under the name "FunBlocks!"?

This is a huge blow to Lego, but it shouldn't be deadly by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:It's a somewaht unique case and sad really

[Dunbal]

Now anyone can produce their product... ...and it's highly unlikely Lego will survive.

      I'm having trouble reconciling that statement. It's essentially the mantra chanted by lobbyists for many "protected" industries, like for example the pharmaceutical industry. Funnily enough, anyone can make and sell acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) nowadays, and Bayer is still in business. There are plenty of denim pant manufacturers, and Levi's is still in business. I simply don't buy the "protect me" argument. Oh sure, they each make less money than in a monopoly situation, but they all still make money.

      In a truly free market, if Lego Group has grown so inefficient that it can't compete, then it DESERVES to go bankrupt. The REAL free market rewards efficiency - in production, marketing and distribution. Tampering with the free market in any way allows inefficiencies to creep in. These inefficiencies incur a hidden cost for all of us, since resources are tied up that could have been used by society elsewhere.

      However I guess the US has forgotten what a free market is. Just looking at the headlines is a daily reminder. Enjoy your United Socialist States of America, and continue to "protect" as much as you can... me, I live in a country that protects very little by law - but allows me a great deal of personal freedom.

Re:Good for your wallet, but poor quality

[Reziac]

Agreed on all counts. I call this "one function only" type of "creativity" DOING THE PLAYING FOR THE CHILD. It actively *prevents* kids from being genuinely creative.

Better to have to figure out how to create the specialty object from the generic parts -- now that's the way to stretch a kid's brain!

[Buy my "Home Brain Stretcher", built entirely from Legos and available for only $199.95!]

Re:Lego didn't invent them in the first place

[MartinSchou]

He failed to patent it outside the UK [...] he irony they they effectively violated the patents of the original inventor is completely lost on them.

How did they effectively violate his patent? You said it yourself - he failed to patent it outside the UK.

That's like saying that European software developers are effectively violating US software patents. Fuck you - they aren't in effect here.

Re:This story is completely wrong.

[compro01]

They have a monopoly on making bricks that actually work, but that's not for legal reasons, that's just because their competitors are incompetent.

Actually, I'm pretty sure one of the main things is their trade-secret plastics formula(s) and molding techniques, which I doubt the others have, which allow for their really tight manufacturing tolerances.

Even with the trademarks and patents out of the picture, I doubt the competition is going to be able to match quality, barring some industrial espionage.

Re:Lego didn't invent them in the first place

[Sockatume]

Your timeline is incorrect, based on most of the sources I can find. Lego-to-be obtained samples of Page's blocks back around '47, and although Page hadn't bothered to patent them outside the UK and France (where he had businesses), Lego-to-be obtained the rights to produce the blocks from Kiddicraft anyway, in '49. The started selling their own that year. Both sets of bricks were abysmal failures by any reasonable measure. Page didn't commit suicide until '57, and Lego didn't introduce the central "tube" until '58. Lego acquired all of Kiddicraft's remaining plastic block patents in ninteen eighty one, almost twenty-five years after Page's suicide, as an aid to their impending litigation.

Re:End of legoes

[TheRaven64]

There are three ways in which a company could undercut Lego:

1. Better economies of scale.
2. Lower production quality.
3. Cross-subsidy.

Option 1 doesn't look feasible - you can't get better economies of scale than the market leader easily. Option 2, from the comments in the last story about this, seems to already be happening. All this does is strengthen the Lego brand - they are the people who make bricks that actually stick together and don't cause toy structures to collapse. Option 3 is also a possibility, but what can you sell more of by selling cheap construction bricks?

Re:Lego didn't invent them in the first place

[smellsofbikes]

There were other, similar blocks well before Hilary Page invented Kiddicraft. I have a box of 2000 pressed wooden blocks called "American Bricks" from 1938, that are similar in size and identical in layout (ratio of height, width, and length, with 2x4 blocks, with 8 studs on top and matching holes on the bottom.) I've read previously that they went back into the late 1920's, and there were others like them beforehand.

It wasn't the idea of stackable, interlocking bricks like Page's and others, that made LEGO successful. It was learning how to do precision plastic injection molding that allowed the bricks to stick together very tightly, and precision chemistry that allowed them to last through thousands of attach/detach cycles, that made LEGO enormous. A friend of mine was a plant manager for an old Samsonite plant that licensed the manufacture of LEGO bricks from 1968-1972, and he said that the LEGO plastic injection molding equipment, used for making toys, was superior to the best American plastic injection molding equipment used for medical equipment at that time.

Re:makes sense, meh

[ChaosDiscord]

The Lego plastic is actually superior, and the quality of the molds must be better, too.

So why is it a mixed blessing? If Lego's products are better, they'll win on quality and be worth the price. Or perhaps the general public doesn't value the difference, in which case the public gets what it wants. This is capitalism working well: competition, with competitors competing on quality and price and consumers having options.

Re:makes sense, meh

[gfxguy]

It's a mixed blessing because of exactly what you point out...

I think people will go for low prices, and before they realize it was a mistake, Lego will already be out of business. You'll say the customers have chosen (they have), but even most of them will realize they chose wrongly only after it was too late.

Re:makes sense, meh

[Colonel Korn]

The Lego plastic is actually superior, and the quality of the molds must be better, too.

So why is it a mixed blessing? If Lego's products are better, they'll win on quality and be worth the price. Or perhaps the general public doesn't value the difference, in which case the public gets what it wants. This is capitalism working well: competition, with competitors competing on quality and price and consumers having options.

Quality doesn't win in this market. You can win on marketing, but not on quality. This ruling means there will soon be lead-tainted Lego-compatible pieces made in a certain Asian country and sold mostly through Walmart. Yeah, they'll break, discolor, and not fit together all that well, but they'll be significantly cheaper than genuine Legos, because Lego can't get away with paying its employees $2500 a year. And these new parts will soon outsell Lego. Now Lego does have a good marketing position, given their great brand recognition, and they'll make a lot more money per part. This will slowly erode, however, until Lego branded parts are a either niche market for elitist liberals who buy their groceries at farmers markets, or it will go away entirely.

Just so you know.

Re:makes sense, meh

[hvm2hvm]

He as a guy who values quality over price(or quantity if you want) sees this as a mixed blessing since people would probably care more for quantity. That would make Lego lower their prices which might lead to a diminish in the quality of the work.

Usually when something is produced by many companies in big numbers marketing starts to take over and quality is most of the times compromised for flashiness or ease of use and other idiot friendly things.

An example that comes to mind is digital cameras. Most cameras these days have more megapixels than they can handle and most parameters are automatic which in IMHO is retarded. It's really hard to find a camera that lets you set the focus and exposure as you like. Instead they have features like print directly from the camera, post on hi5 or something like that... That happening to Lego would make it a joke and destroy one of the only toys that actually educates children instead of dumbing them down (or brainwashing if you want to be more extreme).

PS: Before you start flaming me about the camera example, I am OK with having an automatic focus/exposure/etc. But not including a slider that lets you select 1/100 seems stupid since it's a simple UI element and if you can program an automatic system for the focus you should be able to make it manual. Also, when I said "more megapixels than they can handle" I was talking about the noise that appears because the CCD is just too small for the resolution they are cramming on it. There is a proven limit on the resolution that depends on the lens size and CCD size and as far as I can tell most cameras exceed the limit.

Re:makes sense, meh

[randyest]

To work properly, Lego bricks must be made to a tolerance of one micron, otherwise models would fall apart or the bricks be too hard to separate.

Source? Sorry, no one in their right mind will believe this without more data than some random /.'er claiming it. I mean, sure, there's a tolerance, and according to LEGO company (Warning: PDF, see page 18) [lego.com] it's "as small as 2um" (twice a loose tolerance as your claim.) To me, the "as small as" bit means "no smaller than, and often larger than" so please share why you think it's always twice as accurate as LEGO claims it sometimes is.

Re:makes sense, meh

[Neoprofin]

The problem is when you buy a set of Legos most of the premium you pay isn't going for superior build quality, it's going for licensing because you're getting "Harry Potter" or "Star Wars" wrapped up in the deal, but don't worry they're nice enough to spread the cost to all their lines.

You also have to deal with the politics of Lego. No modern weapons, no Nazis for Indiana Jones to foil. I love my Legos, and the build quality is superior, but there are plenty of other reasons to shop Megablocks.

Re:makes sense, meh

[winwar]

"That would make Lego lower their prices which might lead to a diminish in the quality of the work."

It may but it doesn't have to. After all, the basic blocks haven't changed for probably 50 years. It can't cost much to make plastic blocks from standard dies.

The new stuff, sure. And if Walmart carries legos, they will squeeze them anyway, competition or no.

Re:makes sense, meh

[BlackCreek]

Because the market selects for lemonade. Seriously. This work won a Nobel prize: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons [wikipedia.org]

Though one could argue that in this case, you can make informed shopping of quality bricks. So I guess, this is not directly what the linked article relates to, but more like expensive big iron main frame computers, which most people don't actually need, so most people don't actually pay for it.

Re:makes sense, meh

[snaz555]

It's definitely a race to the bottom, because most parents have no clue what they buy their kids. The #1 goal of buying something is to shut the kid up. The #2 goal is to surprise the kid with a gift. And a $10 CrapKit will do either just as well as a $50 quality one. Toys are considered disposable. And the kid has no clue about concepts like quality and functionality - as long as it looks the part. (Brand recognition is a factor.) The kid will play with the CrapKit, find it difficult to proceed beyond the basics, and will likely grow tired of it because of its limitations. The parent will observe that the hotly desired toy stops being played with after a few days or weeks and pats themselves on the back for being cheap and wonders why anyone would buy the expensive version. They leave this to the people with more money than sense. It's a self-reinforcing spiral, simply because the average person is average intelligence, which means if you even bring up the subject of developing intelligence they'll look at you like you're from a different planet. It's just not something that they ever spend a single brain cycle on. Hey, they came out alright... right?

I always played with Legos when I was a kid. Well, to my parents it was playing, to me it was construction projects. As I got older they became ever better planned and thought out, and I'd carefully plan around the parts available. My parents never saw that part. They viewed Lego, I'm sure, as the equivalent of a crayon and a sheet of paper.

By the time I was 10 or so I built things like flexible suspension bridges (suspended with string) that could carry my HO size train set across 3 feet or more, to replicas of buildings I read about. Lego is a fantastic tool for early development of an innate sense of force distribution; in particular how to design for forces to distribute into compression with little pulling (depending on axis) and close to zero twisting. It encourages focusing on difficult problems somewhat beyond the current skill, then learning through failure and developing an innate sense for how to further improve something that a bystander might already be impressed by or think is beyond good enough.

My take on it is that every parent should buy their kid real, quality Lego. Mostly generic blocks. At least give it a try. Because if the kid takes to it - boy are you getting something of real value for dirt cheap!