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Mega Bloks Wins Supreme Court Battle Against Lego
saskboy writes "Canada's highest court ruled unanimously Thursday that Mega Bloks can continue to sell their Lego styled stackable blocks in Canada.
CBC writes, 'The Supreme Court of Canada decision marks the end of a long-running trademark battle between the Montreal-based Mega Bloks and Denmark's Lego.'"
"Trademark law should not be used to perpetuate monopoly rights enjoyed under now-expired patents," the Supreme Court says.
MegaBlock clearly is in violation. IMHO this has less to do with Canadian law, and more to do with playing a game of tit for tat with the US over the Blackberries. That is not only a dangerous road to go down, but a foolish one.
I assume you're joking...?
First of all, LEGO is not a US company.
Secondly, MegaBlock is not in violation because the patent has expired. LEGO was trying to use trademark law to extend their monopoly.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
You're exactly right. The damn things fall apart if you try to build anything big with them.
I had some Mega Bloks dinosaur thing when I was little. I never managed to build it all the way, because it would fall apart any time more than 1/3 of the blocks were stuck together at once. What a piece of crap.
Legos are way better. I wish they'd re-make some of their classic sets, like some of the old Pirate and Castle ones. That, and not charge 10,000% markup. $100 for an 18-inch-long lego boat? Madness.
Now that other comanies can go to market without getting sued, there will likely be many new market entrants, hopefully some where the quality is good and with a line like Dacta, not stupid only-builds-one-thing dinosaur/castle/pirate-ship sets.
MegaBlock clearly is in violation. IMHO this has less to do with Canadian law, and more to do with playing a game of tit for tat with the US over the Blackberries. That is not only a dangerous road to go down, but a foolish one.
And how exactly would ruling against a Denmark company like Lego help Canada get back at the USA?
But your selling other people's products. Your 'product' is 'joe's sports equiptment store' or whatever. Now if another store comes in town called 'joe's sports equiptment store', then you've got a case. Again, the difference is, you are not creating you are reselling. Very distinct from this case where you have MegaBlocks making bricks with bumps, and Legos making bricks with bumps, and the question being if the bumps infringe on the image. (go back to my second sentance, your parallel would be another company called joe's...)
-everphilski-
"Create a product. If it's copied easily, find a way to make yours better."
That's how I feel about the issue as far as software is concerned.
But, what if your creation can be reverse engineered somewhat easily, and adding new properties is difficult?
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of not being able to do something because someone did it first (especially when it happened decades before I was born and therefore I didn't have a chance to make it). But I still think some, limited, form of protection is needed.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
You might be onto something since I read that Lego is Danish, and Denmark and Canada were recently in a spat about who owns a worthless island in the high arctic, because it might one day determine trade routes through the opening NorthWest Passage.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Any serious or even semi-serious Lego builder will tell you that MegaBloks are *AWFUL* compared to the genuine article.
They are made of a much harder plastic and after being snapped together and pulled apart just a couple of times, they wear out to the point where they hardly stick together at all.
Lego parts are of a slightly more 'rubbery' plastic - they feel almost oily to the touch. I have Lego bricks from 40 years ago that still work just as well as they day they were first used.
When my son was given a bunch of MegaBloks as a present, they 'polluted' our vast Lego collection. Every time I find one, I toss it straight into the trash.
About the only use for MegaBloks is in making large sculptural pieces that you want to glue together to make permenant. The hard polystyrene in MegaBloks can be glued together with polystyrene cement - and the issue of wear becomes irrelevent!
Yet other Lego clones exist - but they tend to have poorer tolerances than either Lego or MegaBloks and can actually damage your real Lego if you mix them.
www.sjbaker.org
I'm out of points, but that was the funniest post I've seen on /. all week.
It's ironic, not paradoxial. Paradoxial would be if LEGO was suing them for making a similar product while at the same time not suing them.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I'm glad that Mega Bloks won the suit - they, at least, put out more creative sets than Lego (not to mention they're Canadian). Lego, if you're listening, I've got lots of disposable income and a fondness towards your brand, but if all you're going to is brand other people's IP, you're not going to have me as a customer.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
What, even on the MegaBloks? I rather doubt it. Otherwise, simple trademark law would have won the day for Lego.
Lego has a technically superior product of far greater quality, consistency, and creativity. I mean, this is the company that gave us Space Police, Blacktron, and Mindstorms!
But attempting to stretch the bounds of trademark law over functional qualities--the domain of patents--is just completely evil and radically asshat. If the parties involved were, say, Microsoft and Suse, I have no doubt how discussion here would go. It'd have nothing to do with the relative technical merits of the product; it's only be about how Company "B" can only seem to win by litigation, not innovation.
Sheesh. I still like Lego, and I still disdain compatible knockoffs, but DAMMIT I wish good companies would stop indulging their legal departments whenever the legal eagles feel like double-fist-raping the bounds of intellectual-property law.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
As an owner of both lego and mega bloks, I feel that this is a bad decision. Mega bloks themselves are of poor quality, and as a younger child, they used to piss me off because they wouldn't 'stick' properly to other lego pieces. I don't understand why mega bloks can't make their own blocks that are just slightly bigger/smaller than lego blocks. They are obviously trying to piggy back off of lego's hard earned success. In case you are ever thinking about picking up a mega bloks set for a child, here's a warning, don't! IMHO mega bloks take away from the 'lego' experience. You get what you pay for.
Dump all intellectual property rights?
Tell me, what is the incentive to create a $100 million movie when on completion you don't even own it? What about a $10 million game (like half-life2 or World of Warcraft).
Why not just dump ALL property rights. Why not have your customers help themselves to anything they want in your store?
Create a product. If it's copied easily, find a way to make yours better.
Thats the thing about IP, its pathetically easy to duplicate, whether we're talking about software, music, books, or movies. The costs are not in the duplication or distribution but creation (as opposed to retail where profit and costs come from distribution and creation costs $0). It takes months or years to create (or research) most IP, and might involve many people, each of which needs to eat and provide for his family.
Yeah..your way is dumb.
Why is my time (or my managers' time) building my product different than a song writer or a book writer?
At heart is the concept of property. You own your sporting merchandise and you choose to give it away for profit. A song writer owns his song and he chooses to do with it what he will (usually sell out to Sony or something). Yes IP is a little bit different which is why it is treated differently, copyright and patents expire and trademarks could be lost. So both you and the song writer own what you create (or build up) and you are given rights to do with what you will. Not that different.
Subway franchises have similar "deals" where, if you have a certain number of stores, then nobody else is allowed to put a store in your area ... frequently store owners get the required number of stores, then build a store 25 miles away from your other stores to cut a swath where nobody else can build a store.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Parents buying construction toys for their kids don't necessarily know how much higher the quality of the plastics used by LEGO are to their competitors, or how much better-engineered the bricks are, but they do know MB is a hell of a lot cheaper than LEGO, and many of them buy accordingly. It's a shame, but there it is.
And then, of course, there are substantial numbers of people who don't even realize there's a difference. There've been surveys showing a lot of people think MB is some sort of LEGO subsidiary or sister brand.
I know! I hate the movie themed lego crap. It seems like they dropped their Space stuff and replaced it with Star Wars, and replaced their Castle sets with Harry Potter! If kids want to play with movie themed stuff, there are perfectly good action figures for that. Legos should be about making your own thing, or at least having no pre-made storyline tying you down or prejudicing your views of the characters before you start, even if you just build what's on the box.