Fake Lego Legal

Many people don`t know this, but there are several thousand sellers on Amazon who let Amazon sell on their platform, but you don`t buy on Amazon itself. These are the sellers who can sometimes be sketchy and try to sneak through/counterfeit products. Yes, there is some truth to that. However, the recent decision by the Chinese court somehow sends a strong message and precedent that such disregard for intellectual property rights will not be ignored. LEGO will simply file another complaint and make it difficult for these counterfeit brands if they still refuse to cease and cease their illegal operations. Amazon does its best to remove all fakes from its platform, but unfortunately, some arrive and are sold. Always beware of « new » Lego that does not come in its original packaging, as this is often a sign of counterfeits. Since the original Lego patent expired, any toy company can make similar bricks without doing anything illegal, as long as they don`t pretend to be real Lego and steal licensed Lego designs or characters. Lepin was actually shut down by Lego in 2019, so while there are still a few, most of the fake/fake Lego were made by other « brands », but all have the same issues as the ones mentioned above regarding Lepin, especially the point about supporting companies that just copy Lego ideas and designs. And the barrier to entry is quite low: it`s not as if counterfeiters need to replicate something particularly technical.

Legos are just small plastic building blocks. They are easy to manufacture. As a result, there is an entire company in China that produces tens of millions of dollars a year in fake Legos. One of the biggest problems with buying real/fake Lego imitations is that you have no idea how they were made or if the materials used to make the bricks are safe in your home. Making bricks similar to Lego is not illegal, as Lego`s patent (the original) expired in 1989, but directly copying their current designs, including licensed characters, is illegal. Lepin (and other fake clone stamps) isn`t going to end anytime soon. Simply creating bricks with your 3D printer is perfectly fine, but copying entire Lego sets wouldn`t be legal. The Lego Group achieved success in 2002 when its Swiss subsidiary Interlego AG sued Tianjin CoCo Toy Co., Ltd.

for copyright infringement. A damages tribunal found that many CoCo complexes were in breach; CoCo was ordered to stop making the counterfeit sets, publish an official apology in the Beijing Daily and pay a small fee in damages to Interlego. On appeal, the Supreme People`s Court in Beijing upheld the verdict of the court of first instance. [14] To make matters worse, these counterfeit brands produce external product packaging with the same artwork as LEGO. Although they put their own logo, it is often very close to the LEGO logo. Often, as mentioned above, a dishonest person buys both a legitimate product and a fake one and then alters the internal contents to return the counterfeit product in the right box. Again, this results in a legitimate LEGO product, while the trash is returned to the retailer, who unknowingly sells it to a legitimate customer. This is simply theft of intellectual property. But it`s not just a part of the Lego business that`s under threat here, but also the integrity of the aftermarket for real Lego kits. Investors need to be careful.

There is a real risk of buying a fake and passing it off as genuine. Reputation is at stake. Also integrity. And – potentially – a lot of money. All LEGO-compatible bricks are legal. At this point, LEGO no longer has a patent on the main features of the LEGO system in terms of shape, dimensions and connectivity. Since the patent on the original Lego design expired in the 1980s, you can use your 3D printer to print Lego-like bricks without it being illegal. However, if you print licensed panels or put the Lego logo on the bricks, it becomes a copyright infringement. These companies are not fake or fake Legos, but simply different building block companies selling similar blocks. Here`s the big deal for something like a licensed Lego set sold by someone like Lepin: If things went really wrong for Lepin with the sets as they are, they could still sell the sets without images or installations and at this point it`s very doubtful that anyone could stop them. sell a sorted mix of bricks to build custom sets and since all Lego instructions are available for free anyway, no one can stop you from downloading and building a set with these instructions and the fake bricks.

However, this is mainly a solution that would work for Europe and the United States, and it would probably be almost impossible to stop Lepin from doing such a thing here. However, Lepin sets are primarily aimed at Asian markets as a direct competitor to Lego and in these regions, the rights are generally not treated with the same control as here and Lego probably won`t be able to sell much of their sets in these markets anyway. Fake Lego, on the other hand, are illegal to make/sell, although buying for personal use is more of a gray area. In 2016, Lego announced that it would take legal action against Guangdong Loongon in China, which makes the Lepin brand, for selling exact replicas of existing Lego products (including box illustrations). [20] Generic Legos that do not bear the Lego name or any of their characters/designs are not illegal and really should not be considered imitations or fakes. These fake « Lego » collections are made with inferior pieces and will also fail/break in many cases where Legos don`t.