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Pushing their luck?

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?

Reply to
Steve Firth
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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

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Most of which live lurking on the bedroom floor, sharp side up. Just ask any parent....

Reply to
John Williamson

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.

Reply to
Steve Firth

Pah, they're nothing - it's the upside down 3-pin plugs that you want to watch out for!

SteveW

Reply to
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.....

Reply to
Bob Eager

They're bad, but they don't come in hundreds.

Reply to
John Williamson

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]
Reply to
Mark

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.

Reply to
John Williamson

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.

Reply to
Steve Firth

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

Reply to
Nightjar

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.

Reply to
Steve Firth

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.

Reply to
Steve Firth

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

Reply to
Nightjar

Do you reckon I could sue a certain televison channel for using part of my name and my name +1 :-)

Reply to
whisky-dave

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

Reply to
Nightjar

And the target may be a small outfit that can't afford large legal fees or the time involved to fight it.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Trade names are sector specific in China I beleive but not normally elsewhere.

Reply to
bert

To what extent is it 2tested". Is it not up to lego or their lawyers to watch applications and object?

Reply to
bert

Only if you've TM'd it - and as you haven't maybe they would turn the tables.

Reply to
bert

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