LEGO Patents

The one from Spain looks like it’s been squabbled over a couple times...

Where's the French patent?

I built 75941 but I didn't know it was Brick Patent Day. I did however appreciate a stack of standard 2x2 bricks in the build, with all the new weird and wonderful pieces I don't see that often, but it feels classic to me and made me smile.

@The_Toniboeh said:
"Interesting that the Finnish one seems to be in Swedish instead Finnish"

Doesn't part of Finland speak Swedish?

Thanks for sharing, very interesting! I only built a magazine polybag, but will build something big this weekend to properly celebrate!

Thanks for this LEGO history.

Well, I was able to spend part of the day working on a MOC, so I guess I did celebrate unawares.

Since I didn’t see these anywhere yesterday, I guess they decided to celebrate International LEGO Day/LEGO Brick Patent Day by waiting until the following day to send these out?

@The_Toniboeh:
I recently found out that over 200 years ago, Russia invaded Sweden and created Finland out of the land they took, to create a “buffer nation”, so maybe Swedish still gets used for legal documents due to that history.

Why is UK patent the only one issued to a company incorporated in Switzerland, while all others are issued to the inventor in person?

Done some MOCing today, I hope it suffices ...

Does Lego need a patent for every new piece/mold?

@Sandinista said:
"Does Lego need a patent for every new piece/mold?"

I think they patented the clutch mechanism, so all bricks are under patent... Until they ran out not long ago. The minifigs is still patented as far as I know.

Best thing about those patents is that they have all expired by now, so TLG can't keep their former monopoly any longer.

These are great to look at. Link to the Irish patent specification... https://eregister.patentsoffice.ie/HttpHandler/Handler.ashx?HandlerType=PDF&DocumentType=PT&DocumentId=22712368

Where is the French patent? :-(

Wow, loved to see the portuguese "version".

Oh dear Gawd.. Maureen in our Patents office must have been having a lazy day that day ??

Celebrated by building a few Pat Pending sets.... Huwbot should try it :-)

Pretty curious to not see the Italian one.

United Kingdom

17th of April 1947

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/original-document?channel=espacenet_channel-ce749f9a-fcfe-4393-9a88-08312ccb3a2f

Hey, no extra points for the UK! In the patent from South Africa the date is also written out in full. ;-)

KNOW YE, THEREFORE, that We, of our especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion...

Such magnificent prose.

Really interesting how these patents range in appearance. Some are really ornate, and nicely suitable for framing. Others look typical of a typical official document. South Africa's is plain; and well Ireland's looks worse than some of my high school history reports. Function over form. I guess that if it's gonna spend its life in a file cabinet--why to bother making it fancy?!

I'm really curious about how many have stamps on them. It can't be for mailing them. So, proof of fees paid?

Props to Ireland *claps*

@rljf311 said:
"So that's what sticker 16 from 4000034 is...

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qx9yxgE-uIY/XRS0FDGmWPI/AAAAAAAALVE/iTEv66NmXtE_PVHcGCUsCSjK3FtMehFJwCEwYBhgL/s1600/lego-inside-tour-system-house-set_stickers.jpg "

Cool find.

The reason some countries are missing could just be that their patents were lost or too damaged to show.

It may also be that LEGO was focussing to some extent on countries with injection moulding industries. I don’t know if it was true at the time but the UK, Spain, Turkey and Israel would later become centres of injection moulding in Europe and the Middle East.

@AustinPowers said:
"Best thing about those patents is that they have all expired by now, so TLG can't keep their former monopoly any longer. "

Outside of Germany no one cares about what's happening here, I can tell ya ...

@Frank_Brickowski said:
" @AustinPowers said:
"Best thing about those patents is that they have all expired by now, so TLG can't keep their former monopoly any longer. "

Outside of Germany no one cares about what's happening here, I can tell ya ..."
Doesn't matter. To me, as someone living in Germany, the German market is all that counts. Might sound selfish, but I guess people for example in the US will also only care about their home market, same with everyone else.
Still, in the long run it might be interesting to see what the consequences will be for everyone of what has started here.

The Polish one seems so regal and stately!

Regarding Lego patents, there is one piece of information that I find really interesting: there are bricks that allow to switch the building direction by 180 degrees, which are used to great effect by other companies like Cobi and Mega Construx.

But, as it turns out, the idea was apparently invented and patented by Lego, who (to my knowledge) have never used such bricks to this very day. After the patent expired, other companies then took up the idea.

If this is true, one may consider it to be one of Lego's forgotten, but possibly most important patents after the 2x4 brick and the minifigure.

I exchanged a couple of 150 VIP points to get some prints with orders. Already have a few, and they do have premium feel to them. Heavy paper, high quality prints with a little embossing.

@deikoon said:
"Regarding Lego patents, there is one piece of information that I find really interesting: there are bricks that allow to switch the building direction by 180 degrees, which are used to great effect by other companies like Cobi and Mega Construx.

But, as it turns out, the idea was apparently invented and patented by Lego, who (to my knowledge) have never used such bricks to this very day. After the patent expired, other companies then took up the idea.

If this is true, one may consider it to be one of Lego's forgotten, but possibly most important patents after the 2x4 brick and the minifigure."
This is indeed a great mystery. One of the most useful parts in brick building history, patented by LEGO yet only used by competitors. Unbelievable.

@AustinPowers said:
" @Frank_Brickowski said:
" @AustinPowers said:
"Best thing about those patents is that they have all expired by now, so TLG can't keep their former monopoly any longer. "

Outside of Germany no one cares about what's happening here, I can tell ya ..."
Doesn't matter. To me, as someone living in Germany, the German market is all that counts. Might sound selfish, but I guess people for example in the US will also only care about their home market, same with everyone else.
Still, in the long run it might be interesting to see what the consequences will be for everyone of what has started here. "

Absolutely. Maybe in some years Germans can tell kids and TFOBs: "You know what, young brick fans, back then it all started here - in Germany. And we, the AFOBs were a part of it." If LEGO really loses its trademark for their name, this will be a global thing and then everyone will take notice.

It's just I have my doubts it will happen, plus I also doubt it would really be necessary to open the market more for competition. I mean, let them keep their trademark name, nothing wrong with that. But just let others compete and don't send your lawers after them. Live and let live.

@Sandinista:
The 2x4 brick was patented (just not by them) because it was completely new. The tube system was patented because it was a functional change. The minifig was patented because it was a new system of components. A lot of new parts don't get patented because there's nothing functionally new about them, like bricks and plates in different sizes. The only difference is the dimensions. Mostly they rely on copyright to protect their new part designs, which is why they've been tweaking the molds on _everything_ to stick some sort of copyright mark on the part wherever they can (yes, even the lightsaber blades now have it formed on the end in _REALLY_ tiny text).

Additionally, the minifig is trademarked, which won't automatically expire. They tried to do the same for the 2x4 brick, but I know at least one court ruled against them (probably EU?). But the distinction is that you patent an invention, you copyright a work of art, and you trademark an identity. A new shape isn't an invention unless it does something different than the old shapes.

@cody6268:
So the first five are bound with string or ribbon, and a seal is affixed over the tail, presumably meant to prevent anyone from adding a sheet (though you could obviously remove one by tearing it out). This would make it difficult to fraudulently modify an existing patent document. This same format is used on the UK, Turkey, and Poland patents.

6, Belgium, does have what appears to be a postage stamp applied. It also has a postmark applied over the stamp, so again, it's probably meant to prevent fraud, but this time by way of marking the official date of the patent in a way that's not easy to modify after the fact. Spain also has the "postage stamp" look, which is reinforced by the fact that the top two look like they might be "1st Class", while the third may be "2nd Class, Business". Note, however, that they have serial numbers printed on them (oddly, the first two, despite being the same design, have serial numbers that are non-consecutive, with a gap of four numbers). Finland also has what appears to be a postage stamp, but I didn't have much luck with trying to translate the text.

Switzerland is the one that has me curious, as I'm wondering what the point is of putting the patent number and date in boxes formed by closely spaced horizontal lines. South Africa is another weird one, as there appears to be a place for an inkpad stamp to be added, but all I can see is the barest hint of one in the bottom of the circle.

Israel just has an embossed stamp, demonstrating that it's an official document (also, a paperclip, which is a bit weird).

Ireland...looks like someone tore off the cover, honestly. Portugal is a little more involved, but likewise pretty plain.

@bigmanjones:
You mean in the BttF movies, there's an instance of the LEGO patent filing date? That seems very odd, considering LEGO wasn't really that big a deal here back then.

And yes, there have been tons of lawsuits regarding the minifig trademark. All that I've heard of, though, is lawsuits filed by The LEGO Company against those who copy the look of the minifig too closely, and every case I've heard about has been awarded in their favor. This is notable because they definitely got slapped down over attempting to trademark the 2x4 brick. I doubt the minifig will have its trademark revoked. Even if it does, it will only apply in that jurisdiction, meaning any of these global clone brands will still have to shy away from looking too much like a LEGO minifig if they want to be able to sell those products elsewhere.

@Zander:
They were very slow to expand to worldwide production, as is to be expected for what was, and still technically is, a family company with no public investors. Filing patents worldwide would not have made sense until they actually started doing business in each new country, and patent laws vary quite a bit globally. In the US, things were complicated because they licensed the LEGO System to the Samsonite company. In countries like China, they may not have even been able to file these patents at all because the inventions were too old by the time they entered those markets.

@AustinPowers:
No. We're not Germans. Unlike you, we didn't grow up believing that we were the only country that mattered to The LEGO Company. I had a friend in college who got Castle sets that weren't sold in the US because his parents would bring them back from Europe. The US didn't really start to become a major market until Star Wars sets debuted in 1999, and even then North America never seemed to match the whole of Europe in terms of sheer buying power. Just over two decades later, we're already facing the possibility of being overtaken by China someday. We may be the country that matters most to them _now_, but they clearly haven't been showing it lately. We had our community rep eliminated before Europe. They capped the US for the LEGO Certified Professional program because we "had too many", and now we've had enough LCPs exit the program that we're outnumbered by Canada, China, and Korea.

@deikoon:
As far as I know, Tyco was the first company to introduce a reversing plate. There were both male and female versions, which, when combined, would form a full 2x2 brick because Tyco plates were 50% taller than LEGO plates. At the time, they may not have been considered to be very desirable. Today, that might be a different story, but by inventing something and failing to capitalize on it, they may have allowed other companies to file their own patents, thereby preventing The LEGO Company from using it unless they restricted the sale of those sets to regions where there was no patent filed.

Alternately, they may have run into problems trying to mold it. If it was a solid plate with solid studs, there would be massive deformation of the surface when it cooled. I know Tyco got around this with their female reversing plate by making the whole thing look like a piece of shaped pasta, all done in a wireframe style, but I don't remember what the male version looked like. It's possible that could work for a LEGO version, but especially with the thinner plate, it would be more prone to breaking. Another possiblity would be to make it like a regular plate on one side, and make the other side hollow with deeply recessed studs. Or they could make it symmetrical, with the "top" surface lowered to the midpoint and less deeply recessed studs on both sides.

Hey, who knows. Maybe we'll find out something interesting about it in The Secret Life of Bricks.

@PurpleDave said:
"I doubt the minifig will have its trademark revoked. Even if it does, it will only apply in that jurisdiction, meaning any of these global clone brands will still have to shy away from looking too much like a LEGO minifig if they want to be able to sell those products elsewhere."
I'm totally with you on that one. Especially as historically, courts in the EU have been extremely LEGO friendly when it came to such lawsuits.

The thing that proves to me how worried TLG is about the situation is that they are filing lawsuits against companies whose minifigs look nothing like LEGO ones other than that they can also be identified as a representation of a human being, like the minifigs by Qman or Xingbao, both of which are very different from the LEGO version, both aesthetically as well as technically.

"Hey, who knows. Maybe we'll find out something interesting about it in The Secret Life of Bricks."
I'm really curious about that too. Otoh, we might never find out the reason why.

@PurpleDave:

Thanks for your detailed reply. These are examples of the male versions of the parts that I was referring to:

https://justbricks.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Cobi-C47-Dakota-09.jpg

@AustinPowers:
I doubt you'll believe it, but they actually have to. If you don't defend your trademarks, they can be revoked. That, or letting them fall idle, are the only ways you can actually lose them. In the latter case, you can still revive them if nobody else swipes them (like what happened with the Captain Marvel name). If they're revoked, they're gone for good, like what happened with Aspirin and Xerox.

Now, QMan may have skirted the safe side of the law by just borrowing the basic proportions while shaping the parts differently, but Xingbao straight up ripped off the minifig specs. They even ripped off hairstyles that were still under copyright, like the hair from Agents' Dollar Bill, the Cavill Superman, Ninjago's Kai, and Indiana Jones' Elsa Schneider. In fact, from the same single image that I found those, I see a ton of other elements from the 2010's that are still under active copyright protection, including the PotC bottle, the trophy minifig, the genie lamp, the boom box, the minifig bucket w/ handle, the nipple tile, the Friends star, the minifig tiara, the minifig telescope, the Emperor hologram, the chihuahua, the tooth tile, and the quarter-round tile. This is just from six Home Furnishings sets they released in 2017. I can't identify a single part that wasn't a direct copy of a pre-existing LEGO part. How they're still in business, I couldn't say. And how you can say their minifigs aren't a direct rip-off of the LEGO minifig is even more shocking.

@deikoon:
Well, the parts look like garbage, but I'd love to see actual LEGO parts like that. While it's true that LEGO parts have played around with hiding the pips (very appreciated) and putting them right out in the open (double-cheeses switched them from either end to the back, and longer 1x tiles now have them off-center on one end), I don't recall them ever being white from stress like they are on this 1x4. The corners also appear to be thicker than the sides.

@dpa1 said:
"These are great to look at. Link to the Irish patent specification... https://eregister.patentsoffice.ie/HttpHandler/Handler.ashx?HandlerType=PDF&DocumentType=PT&DocumentId=22712368"

Thanks for that link, printed them out and framed the first page and the brick designs, perfect for the Lego room