
Expired patent of the day: Lego - gmodena
http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/expired-patent-of-the-day-lego.html
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njharman
Legos are beautiful. Elegant mathematical / engineering wise.

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jayfuerstenberg
Just in time too with 3D printers becoming more and more popular.

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speleding
Judging by how badly the Chinese imitation lego bricks stick together it is
apparently not quite so easy to make proper bricks. I wonder if you can
achieve the right "stickiness" within the manufacturing tolerances of a 3D
printer.

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archangel_one
I am guessing not - apparently Lego production has tolerances around 0.01mm
([http://cache.lego.com/upload/contentTemplating/AboutUsFactsA...](http://cache.lego.com/upload/contentTemplating/AboutUsFactsAndFiguresContent/otherfiles/download98E142631E71927FDD52304C1C0F1685.pdf))
and 3D printer tolerances at best seem to be around hundredths of an inch?

Although I agree that some of the knockoffs are significantly not as good (in
that they don't click together properly), I would have loved to be able to
create my own Lego bricks in my younger days and I'd probably put up with them
being a bit slack if I had to. I wonder if Lego are worried - things would be
pretty grim for them if in 10 years time any child could download and print
out any set of interlocking bricks that they wanted...

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vegardx
And Lego has seen this coming for years and done a lot of amazing things to
reinvent itself. They had similar problems during the 90's with knockoff
products and such, and was almost bankrupt at some point.

They've introduced Lego Technic and later Mindstorm, which patented or not has
no good competitors right now. Lego has a good brand name and a good product
in a niche! Also, Lego Land in Denmark is awesome!

I think kids for many generations will find joy in some kind of Lego products!
At least I hope so, it's the best things ever!

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archangel_one
I disagree about the reinvention. It may just be my advancing age showing, but
when I try to buy a Christmas present for my cousin it is rather annoying that
the majority of the sets seem to be Star Wars or Harry Potter which to me
rather defeat the point of Lego, especially since the pieces tend to be a lot
more specific to the particular set than I remember from my youth.

Technic has been around for 20 years or more, since I had that back in my
childhood.

I agree that overall it's a great toy and a great brand, I just think that
they're going to have problems maintaining their current revenues if producing
your own became practical, especially since it's not at all cheap in a store.

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HeyLaughingBoy
It probably is just your old age :-)

I just got my 11 y-o son (yet another) Lego Star Wars set for his birthday and
it's amazing the things he makes. Day 1 is just building whatever Star Wars
thingy the set is about.

Days 2 - infinity are taking the existing thousands of Lego blocks (that he
has sorted into color-coded bins: the only organization I've ever seen him do)
and building all sorts of crap out of it. So we end up with Boba Fett fighting
Harry Potter on top of Hogwarts with the Indiana Jones's office addition!

And all I can do is build Indy an LED lamp for his desk.

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Havoc
I suspect that it won't matter one tiny bit that its expired. I know if I had
children I'd certainly pay a few dollars extra to get the real deal.

Tried, tested, compatible with other pieces and most importantly safe for
kids.

The only thing that will come from this is that Lego's profit margin will take
a minor hit.

* Edited for typo

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jh
No I know what has been wrong all my life. I am missing the block from Fig. 1.

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utunga
interesting how, when first invented, the bumps went down

kinda makes more sense to have the top side flat - but just feels so wrong to
me now.... interesting

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kleiba
Isn't that just a matter of how you hold the brick?!

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brianbreslin
Would a custom - bespoke - lego shop work? I.e. I need a piece like this, so I
order them made on a 3d printer and mailed to me?

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HeyLaughingBoy
How much would you pay?

As an aside, I really don't know why people get so excited about 3D printing
to the exclusion of all other manufacturing methods. Lego blocks could easily
be made to the accuracy required on a milling machine using technology that's
100 years old. And it would be much faster than printing.

3D printing is certainly useful, but it gets way too much press. About the
only reason I can think of is that it's easier to DIY a RepRap than a CNC
milling machine due to the much smaller forces required.

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brianbreslin
3d printing in this case would be faster than manually using a milling
machine. cnc could work though. I thought it would be more of a "this is
clever" though i can't imagine charging more than $1-2/block and no clue if
anyone would pay that. I haven't bought a lego in 20 years.

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nobody3141
" Judges agreed with experts who said a brick was a technical shape which
could not be trademarked."

Odd that the unique pattern of interlocking holes and columns on a Lego brick
is obvious and technical.

While a tablet computer being shaped like the piece of paper it replaces is
protected

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semanticist
I think you're confusing trademarks with patents.

Trademarks are to protect brand names and brand identities. Patents are to
protect inventions and technical and design concepts.

Lego could, and did, get patents for the blocks. That's the entire point of
the Boingboing article - the patent was granted and has since expired.

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dredmorbius
To be honest, the linked article references both.

The Lego was patented 50 years ago. Patent terms generally range from 17-20
years (from issue or filing date). So Lego's original patent expired long ago.

Patents cover functional inventions.

Also mentioned is an earlier Boing-Boing story in which functional aspects of
the Lego brick design were denied trademark protection.

Copyright (not mentioned in the article) and trademark do _not_ cover
functional design, but literal expression (copyright) and trade dress
(trademark). So, a rectangular brick functionally compatible with Lego bricks
made by Acme, Inc., and branded appropriately, doesn't infringe Lego's
trademark for its _functional_ aspects. Even if these mean that the visual
design of the brick is highly similar to a Lego brick (as it would have to
be).

Similar findings have been made in copyright law, particularly Sega v.
Accolade, in which case a literal reference as part of the activation code of
a compatible game was found to be _functional_ , and hence, not a _copyright_
infringement.

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nobody3141
Lego had a patent on the design of the bricks 50 years ago - but failed to get
a trademark on the shape of the bricks.

Apple got a design patent on the general shape of the iPad. Design patents are
a convenient way to get around the fact that trademarks offer much less
protection than patents and are generally assessed rather more sensibly.

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0x12
Design patents are an abuse of patent law.

