In the blog series ‘the IP protection of …’ we explain how intellectual property law can provide protection for a specific product or service.
Everyone has built with it at one time or another: Lego’s colourful building bricks. Lego building sets are not only popular among children, but also among adults who spend hours building them. However, the popularity of the colourful Lego bricks also has a downside for Lego; it is often faced with counterfeit products. To take action against these counterfeits, Lego has ensured, among other things, that it owns a variety of intellectual property rights. In this blog, we will discuss the intellectual property rights that offer protection to Lego – and those that no longer do.
Trademark rights: the brand name, logo and shape of the Minifigure and brick
There are different types of trademarks, such as word marks, figurative marks, color marks and shape marks. Lego of course owns registrations for the word mark ‘LEGO’. In practice, the word Lego is almost always followed by the ® symbol. By doing so, Lego wants to emphasize that this is the LEGO word mark and that the products in question originate from Lego itself. In this way, Lego is trying to prevent its brand name from being used as a generic term for bricks. A trademark may lose protection if the brand name is commonly used by consumers as a generic name for the product and the trademark owner has not made sufficient efforts to prevent this.
In addition, the well-known red LEGO logo has been registered as a figurative mark.
Recently, Lego won a long legal battle about the trademark protection of the Lego Minifigure. The result is that the Lego Minifigure remains to be protected as a shape mark.
LEGO used to have a shape mark for the Lego brick. However, a competitor of LEGO invoked its invalidity because the shape was allegedly determined by its function. Successfully, as it turned out after a lengthy legal dispute.
Design rights: the design of a Lego brick and Minifigure
In addition to trademark protection, Lego also attempted to register a design for a particular type of Lego brick. This too was the subject of lengthy legal dispute, but the General Court of the European Union finally ruled in January 2024 that this particular Lego brick is indeed a valid design.
Besides this Lego brick, Lego also has a whole range of design rights for all kinds and shapes of other Lego bricks, as well as for its Lego Minifigures.
Patent law
As many Lego products are technical in nature and Lego is constantly investing in new developments and products, Lego holds more than 2,000 valid patents worldwide. Among other things, electrical components and wheels and gearboxes for built vehicles are protected as patents.
Lego also used to have a patent on its Lego brick, but patents expire after 20 years and this protection period cannot be extended. After that period, the invention can basically be used freely by anyone. That is the reason why Lego tried to register its Lego bricks as trademarks and designs after its patent expired. As described above, these attempts have led to mixed results.
Copyrights
Finally, Lego also owns copyrights. For instance, the design of its construction kits and Minifigures may (at least in the Netherlands) fall under the scope of copyright protection as long as these products are the result of creative choices. Various aspects of the Lego film and Lego video games are also protected by copyrights. In addition, Lego regularly collaborates with other well-known parties, such as Star Wars and Disney, for its construction kits, films and video games. Since Lego does not hold the intellectual property rights to these parties’ characters, it regularly enters into licensing agreements in order to use these characters.
Want to know more?
Want to know more about intellectual property rights and whether your product or service can be protected as well? Our team of intellectual property law specialists is ready to assist you.
Earlier in this series, a blog was posted on the IP protection of Barbie. That blog can be read here (in Dutch).
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