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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.'"
I remember when I was a kid I had a ton of Legos, including some of the larger Duplo blocks left over from when I was *really* young. At one point my brother and I picked up a set of Tyco blocks (some dinosaur mecha, if I remember right). What was interesting about it was that the blocks and pegs were the same size, so they could connect with Legos, but the flat pieces were half the thickness of a normal piece instead of one-third. That made for some interesting possibilities.
There was also a set of Tic-Tac-style candies (I forget the name -- Ipso or something like that) that we found at some store that came in square plastic boxes with pegs on two edges and holes on the other. Each edge was exactly like the top or bottom of an 8x2 Lego piece. We'd use them to build walls or base plates. I never saw them anywhere else, so I assumed they were discontinued pretty quickly, whether Lego put pressure on them or they just didn't catch on.
We'd mix and match those different brands of blocks all the time. Having the other companies' blocks never stopped us from buying more Legos.
I'm always here decrying the value is striking copyright, patents and trademark rights. At the most basic, they're a way to gain government's monopoly on force for yourself.
Legos. Plastic bricks. The value in their logo is held up by showing consumers that Lego makes the most consistent blocks, with the easiest instructions and with the most fun creations. The State-granted monopoly that gave Lego sole use of the design isn't the power behind the brand.
I'd normally get replies saying "Without protections, no one would write music/invent/make plastic blocks!!!" But this is not true.
If you open a restaurant, do you get a monopoly for running a restaurant in your area? Isn't it wrong for someone to open a restaurant in a new community, build a customer base for years and then have some whipper-snapper open a new restaurant across the street and steal your customers?
I own retail stores (board sports and paintball). It costs about $25 in marketing to get a new customer into the sport and into my store. At least yearly I have someone see our good fortune and open a few miles away. They underprice me, steal some business and then go bankrupt and sell everything at half price. In 3 years I've outlived 7 such competitors.
Why is my time (or my managers' time) building my product different than a song writer or a book writer? It isn't. Yet they're legally protected with monopoly powers.
Trademark (and copyright) is bunk. Freedom means the freedom to compete.
Create a product. If it's copied easily, find a way to make yours better.
The quality of non-lego blocks is seriously sub-par compared to the lego company's brick quality.
They feel cheap, they don't hook together and stay hooked, and they use way way way more custom peices than lego (and these days, that's saying something!).
I mean, I'm all for competition, but I can't say that I think the price legos deliver at, around 1c US per brick in the generic bins of bricks is, you know, out of line.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
- Put up your hand if you played with Lego (mechano/etc) as a child, and
- Put up your hand if you can appreciate Monty Python (the Goodies / Red Dwarf / etc) humour.
If you put up a hand for both questions then you have the right personality to be able to work in IT, otherwise there are now plenty of jobs around the periphery of IT that might suit you.I'm yet to find a major exception to the above theory.
Nice to see that there will continue to be Lego alternatives for those anti-Danish interested in developing IT aptitude skills