I spotted earlier today a company selling giant Lego blocks to be used for creating storage bays etc. I wonder if they may be sailing a bit close to the wind by calling their product Legioblock?
- posted
10 years ago
I spotted earlier today a company selling giant Lego blocks to be used for creating storage bays etc. I wonder if they may be sailing a bit close to the wind by calling their product Legioblock?
Are they exact but larger replicas of the interlocking mechanism? If so then they will get done. Otherwise, well, its probably not going to hurt Lego much, but they are apparently looking for new markets. Apparently there are 6 lego bricks for every person living on the planet at the moment.
Brian
Most of which live lurking on the bedroom floor, sharp side up. Just ask any parent....
They ate concrete rather than plastic so the blocks don't clip. The do have eight pips per block like Lego.
I wondered about the name because Lego threatened to sue the Uni department that I worked at in the 80s because we described a block histogram as a "Lego plot". I got a personal letter from their legal eagles and had to send them a signed apology for abusing the Lego(tm) trademark.
Pah, they're nothing - it's the upside down 3-pin plugs that you want to watch out for!
SteveW
Just as traumatic (but not so painful):
Just after lunch. Bed not made (only had a sheet on it anyway, flung back when I got up). Cat had crept in to sleep on bed.
Decided to lie down for a bit due to aching back (had been working in an awkward space). Lie down (wearing just shorts) and fling sheet over me.
What landed on me (bare legs and stomach) was spatterings of cat sick and a dead mouse.....
They're bad, but they don't come in hundreds.
I find actions like this purplexing. I know they have a legal right to do this but you naming a chart 'lego plot' is not going to harm their business one iota.
[I once received a similar threatening email (sent on Christmas day IIRC) asking me to desist using something by a company called 'Belbin'. I had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged copyright or trademark infringement BTW]
Toys'R'Us have a policy of threatening to sue for trademark and copyright infringement if you use "apostrophe R apostrophe" in the middle of your trading name and they find out.
Well it harmed their business slightly because I now refuse to buy Lego(tm) products.
Two reasons really one was harassing me and my colleagues the other because they reneged on their promise not to sell military models and toy guns.
Legioblock is a registered trade mark, so the registrar obviously saw no conflict in the names and Lego would have had an opportunity to object before the name was registered.
I suspect that Lego is registered for games and playthings and probably anything else they can actually justify by use but not for building materials, unless they have a construction industry arm I haven't heard of. If so, the building materials company could even have called their product Lego without infringing the trade name.
Colin Bignell
Locally we had Virgin Windows, a company started by Mr Virgin. Richard Branson sued him and won. Mr Virgin's defence was that he started his company in the 1960s. The judge said that didn't count.
As bad as the treatment handed out to the owner of the Olympic Cafe.
Nightjar wrote: [snip]
Well yes but it doesn't always work that way. As witness Virgin Windows and Virgin computers. Branson doesn't sell either but his company successfully sued both businesses.
And my computer graphics had no relationship to childrens' toys.
Computers would be an easy win. They are trade mark Class 9, which covers communications equipment, which Virgin do supply, as well such diverse items as teaching apparatus, hazmat suits and sunglasses.
I am not familiar with the case of Virgin Windows, but suspect that may have sued on the grounds of passing off, rather than trade mark infringement, as I can see no obvious class overlap.
However, the point about Legioblocks is that it is a registered trade mark, so it has already been tested for potential conflicts.
Indeed, but that would not stop the lawyers sending out a cease and desist letter, even if they knew they could not win an action. It shows their client that they are watching their interests, allows them to send a large bill to the client and often results in the name being dropped without any further action.
Colin Bignell
Do you reckon I could sue a certain televison channel for using part of my name and my name +1 :-)
On 26/07/2013 10:28, Steve Firth wrote: ...
OTOH, McDonald's is banned from opening a restaurant in the Cayman Islands, following the failure of their case against a local restaurant and, in Illinois, a Mr Ronald McDonald continued to run McDonald's Family Restaurant, despite a 26 year legal campaign by the franchise.
Colin Bignell
And the target may be a small outfit that can't afford large legal fees or the time involved to fight it.
Trade names are sector specific in China I beleive but not normally elsewhere.
To what extent is it 2tested". Is it not up to lego or their lawyers to watch applications and object?
Only if you've TM'd it - and as you haven't maybe they would turn the tables.
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