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Off brand Lego?


~Shockwave~

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So, I was browsing facebook and came across an ad for a site called connectbloks.com. they apparently have been in business since 2016 (!) And claim to offer discounted off brand Lego sets. I'm guessing this isn't legal, and they seem awfully excited about it. Just curious what you all think.

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Advertising their products as "off-brand Lego" is certainly something they shouldn't be doing. LEGO is a trademark, so advertising something that isn't part of the LEGO brand in those terms would infringe on that trademark.

 

Whether the products themselves are illegal depends on whether the stuff they carry is brands like Kre-O and Mega Bloks that mostly only copy basic bricks (for which any patents or other protections are long expired) and otherwise stick mostly to original set, part, and figure designs, or actual knock-off brands like Lepin and Decool that copy entire set designs, minifigures, and even recent, specialized part designs.

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Any part introduced prior to 1997 has an expired patent, assuming Lego always renews patents for the full 20 years.

 

I believe duplicating a set design would fall under copyright and copyrights have the completely unreasonable lifespan of life + 70 years, and I don't think Lego was around back when copyrights had to be manually renewed.

 

As for using the Lego name, that's a bit murkier. If Lego has become a generic term(which I'd argue it should), than anything goes. If the trademark on the name is still active, an off brand claiming to be Lego would certainly be a violation, but I'm not sure how far claims along the line of "like Lego" or "compatible with Lego" can go without being violations. Now, even if the name has been legally declared a generic term, it's quite possible current Lego logos are still under Trademark. Sadly, generification isn't a well-defined process and it almost always comes down to court decisions as to when a term becomes generic, but the idea is that a term becomes generic when the population starts using a brand name as a catch all term for a type of product(examples include dumpster for large trash bins, zipper for meshed teeth fasteners, velcro for hook and loop fasteners, Hoover for vacuum cleaner(though I confess I've never heard anyone call a Vacuum Cleaner a hoover). And yes, I'd argue that, colloquially, people use the term lego as a catch all for any building toy that uses studded bricks as their core component, and that it would've been declared a generic term years ago in a world where IP law wasn't broken.

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Advertising their products as "off-brand Lego" is certainly something they shouldn't be doing. LEGO is a trademark, so advertising something that isn't part of the LEGO brand in those terms would infringe on that trademark.

 

Whether the products themselves are illegal depends on whether the stuff they carry is brands like Kre-O and Mega Bloks that mostly only copy basic bricks (for which any patents or other protections are long expired) and otherwise stick mostly to original set, part, and figure designs, or actual knock-off brands like Lepin and Decool that copy entire set designs, minifigures, and even recent, specialized part designs.

 

It certainly looks like they are. One of them appears to be a Rouge One set copy. But I haven't been keeping the best eye on that stuff so I don't know about that.

 

Okay, wow, no, these are straight up lifted off the current Lego sets. And they are also more expensive? Weird... 

 

Any part introduced prior to 1997 has an expired patent, assuming Lego always renews patents for the full 20 years.

 

I believe duplicating a set design would fall under copyright and copyrights have the completely unreasonable lifespan of life + 70 years, and I don't think Lego was around back when copyrights had to be manually renewed.

 

As for using the Lego name, that's a bit murkier. If Lego has become a generic term(which I'd argue it should), than anything goes. If the trademark on the name is still active, an off brand claiming to be Lego would certainly be a violation, but I'm not sure how far claims along the line of "like Lego" or "compatible with Lego" can go without being violations. Now, even if the name has been legally declared a generic term, it's quite possible current Lego logos are still under Trademark. Sadly, generification isn't a well-defined process and it almost always comes down to court decisions as to when a term becomes generic, but the idea is that a term becomes generic when the population starts using a brand name as a catch all term for a type of product(examples include dumpster for large trash bins, zipper for meshed teeth fasteners, velcro for hook and loop fasteners, Hoover for vacuum cleaner(though I confess I've never heard anyone call a Vacuum Cleaner a hoover). And yes, I'd argue that, colloquially, people use the term lego as a catch all for any building toy that uses studded bricks as their core component, and that it would've been declared a generic term years ago in a world where IP law wasn't broken.

 

I'm gonna have to disagree with that. What this site appears to be doing (Siphoning off another companies work and selling it) should not be tolerated. Lego may be used as a generic term, but even if it's become one, opening that floodgate would be the exact opposite of a solution. I think a brand saying it's "off brand _____" is a good sign. Carbon copying a well known entities work usually isn't a good idea.

3DS Freind Code: 1693-0634-1082 Name: Joey


I also have Mario Kart 7, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Pokemon Y and Kid Icarus: Uprising


PM me to add me. 


Steam profile


Click here for the BZP Destiny Group

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Honestly, I'm not seeing how calling their product off brand Lego is fundamentally different from Malt-o-meal cereals having writing on the bag that says compare to *Insert closest Kellogg's/General Mills analog* or when television ads compare the product being advertised to competitors.

 

Granted, in this case, it sounds like they're ripping off specific sets or running some kind of scalping scam, which quite a bit more clear cut an IP violation than mentioning Lego's name in the copy for buckets of bricks not made by Lego.

Just so you know, I'm blinad

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MegaBloks and Kreo advertised as "compatible with other major brands" not mentioning LEGO but implying it. The is a reason they did that.

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