One of the countless patents of LEGO on brick as we all know it and filed by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen son of Ole Kirk Christiansen the founder of LEGO, October 24, 1961 expires today, October 24, 2011. It is not the the first of many patents the company has filed over decades to expire, or be challenged by a court ruling.
As early as 1988 in Canada, the loss of one of its patents led to the emergence of competitors in the market for interlocking brick construction toys. MegaBrands , for example, entered this lucrative market with a similar product called MegaBlocks . LEGO's legal reaction was fierce, and on May 24, 2002, the Canadian Federal Court rejected TLC's claim, arguing that the patent covered a shape with a functional capacity, not a product. LEGO appealed this decision and was once again defeated by the Federal Court of Appeal in 2003. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that patents should not be used to maintain a monopoly. MegaBrands was therefore able to continue producing its bricks. In 2010, MegaBrands again attacked the trademark registered in Europe in 1999 and won their case based on the same anti-monopoly criteria.
What will this change? Nothing. LEGO competitors are already capable of producing compatible bricks, and counterfeiters are already flooding the market with products with packaging and content similar to LEGO. For the latter, therefore, counterfeiting does not relate so much to the use of the brick, as to the sometimes perfect copy of existing sets sold at a lower cost and creating confusion in the minds of consumers.
The fundamentalists of the LEGO brick often advance the higher level of quality of the production of the firm of Billund compared to that of the other manufacturers. This is often true, but one cannot decently blame a consumer for trying to find the best value for money to please a kid looking for a construction toy.
LEGO products are sold very expensive, making the brand a luxury item that is not affordable to all budgets. The opening up of competition not only creates counterfeiting, but also forces the manufacturer to adapt its inflationary pricing policy in order to maintain its market share. And this is a good thing. After all, the trade war is a reality and LEGO must clean up its own strategies: How many of us younger have been enticed by promising packaging that's oversized and turns out to be half empty when opened ...
Regarding the quality of the brick and its functionality, all is not rosy at LEGO either. If the brick itself is designed to be solid and fit together perfectly, the finish of some sets with which it is impossible to play without the whole coming apart and falling apart at the slightest impact leaves much to be desired. Recent production of minifigs in China also reveals the use of poor quality plastics.
The war is on, and if it becomes above all a licensing war, LEGO will have to fight to maintain its image as a high-end product in the face of competitors increasingly able to offer a convincing and much cheaper alternative.
