Justice: LEGO wins its case against Best Lock. So what ?

The little world of LEGO has been echoing since yesterday a judgment rendered by the General Court of the European Union which confirms "... decisions to register the shape of LEGO minifigures as a Community trade mark ...".

In addition to the shortcuts of some on the importance of this judgment and its consequences, it should still be borne in mind that this decision only validates the rejection by the OHIM (Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market) of the nullity claim initiated by the Best Lock brand.

The court therefore acknowledges the fact that the shape of the minifig is not linked to a purely technical constraint but that it has all the legitimacy to be filed under a Community trademark.

However, let us not forget a basic principle: Court decisions only bind those who play with the rules. The others, those who break the law, are not directly affected by these judgments.

Clearly, counterfeit minifigs from obscure Chinese factories will continue to proliferate and supply the parallel market, and those who have so far tried to bite into the huge construction toys market, often by surfing the limits of the legality but still playing with the established rules will exhaust themselves financially in endless legal procedures instead of trying to innovate and stand out.

On the basis of this judgment, LEGO will therefore probably be justified in preventing the marketing in Europe of products including characters with a design similar to that of the minifig whose design is protected.

Torsten Geller, the CEO of Best Lock who has no tongue in his pocket and who regularly declares that LEGO did not invent anything, intends to appeal the decision of the tribunal of the European Union and stands on its positions.

For him, the design of a minifig is directly linked to its integration into the overall concept created by LEGO and therefore constitutes a simple element of the toy concerned. He invokes in particular the fact that the dimensions of the minifigs are directly linked to those of conventional bricks and that the holes at the back of the legs are intended for interlocking.

The press release published by the General Court of the European Union is available in French at this address.

Case to follow.