Continued review of legal history LEGO company. The most controversial tool for protecting LEGO blocks is copyright, if only because the shape of the blocks is determined by technical necessity and the creative nature of the products is not obvious. Even representatives of the LEGO company themselves admitted in a Swedish court in 1987 that there was not enough originality in Lego blocks to be considered an object of copyright [1]. An additional complexity is created by the fact that objects of copyright are not registered and copyright arises automatically due to the creation of a work; therefore, in a legal dispute it is necessary to prove the existence of an object of copyright. Under the influence of circumstances, the position of lawyers may change. This happened in one case, in which representatives of the LEGO company began to prove the existence of copyrights to the blocks.
In September 1999, the LEGO Company filed a lawsuit against the Keago Toy Company and Beijing Trade Center for infringement of LEGO copyrights. The defendants sold counterfeits of various LEGO blocks. In this case, the Beijing People's Court found that the LEGO bricks exhibited a sufficient degree of originality to qualify as works of applied art and to qualify for copyright protection under the Berne Convention. Based on the stated requirements, they were satisfied [2].
The final part of the review of the history of the LEGO company is devoted to the second main asset of the company: the LEGO man minifigure (hereinafter referred to as the minifigure). The earliest document that legally formalizes the rights to a minifigure is the US Industrial Design Patent No. USD253711 [1].
Fig. 1. Industrial design No. USD253711
Following the expiration of its design protection, two works were registered by LEGO with the US Copyright Office: the base minifigure (entry number VA0000655104) and the brown hair minifigure (entry number VA0000655230). [3].
No patent has been found in the European Union for the basic minifigure, but there are later patents for modifications to the figure, such as Patent No. 000128681-0003 [4]
Fig. 2. No. 000128681-0003
The LEGO company took the already well-known strategy of protecting the object by registering it as a trademark, which similarly resulted in litigation. In 2000, trademark No. 000050450 was registered in the European Union [5]:
Fig. 3. Trademark No. 000050450
LEGO competitor Best Lock filed an opposition to the registration of the specified trademark. The Best Lock company asked to cancel the registration because, in their opinion, firstly, the trademark is determined by the nature of the goods themselves; secondly, the minifigure ensures the achievement of only a technical result, namely the ability to connect the minifigure with other building blocks for gaming purposes [6].
The European Intellectual Property Office and the Appeal Board did not find Best Lock's arguments convincing and therefore dismissed the challenge. The European General Court supported the position of the European Office, while pointing out: (1) Best Lock did not provide evidence to support the assertion that the trademark is determined by the nature of the goods themselves; (2) parts of the figure such as hands cannot be connected to building blocks; (3) the graphic representation of the figures themselves does not allow us to determine whether its parts perform any technical functions. Legal protection of the trademark was preserved.
The LEGO Company has similar minifigure trademarks in other countries, particularly in Russia.
The end?
This concludes the review, but not the story of LEGO as it continues to thrive in the market. I would like to believe that in the future the ingenuity and resourcefulness of LEGO lawyers will be able to surprise us more than once.
List of sources
1. Lundahl J. The LEGO BRICK in the Borderzone Between forms of Protection. – 2005.;
