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Saw this scroll by on Bloomberg:
Mega Bloks Confirms Cancellation of Lego Shape Mark by European Union Trademark
Office
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-02-2004/0002223318
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Erik Olson wrote:
| |
Saw this scroll by on Bloomberg:
Mega Bloks Confirms Cancellation of Lego Shape Mark by European Union
Trademark Office
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-02-2004/0002223318
|
Hey all, back from a long lurk and I see this!
Well, that’s fair enough. The LEGO trademark on the standard brick must have
expired years ago, it’s only the fact that the community automatically
associates said brick design with LEGO that prevented Megabloks taking it for
themselves ages ago. The problem I see here is that if Megabloks go too far with
this, they will start getting their products confused for LEGO’s, resulting in
customer backlash when it is discovered that the toy they bought for their
little darlings is not, in fact, LEGO, but an inferior brand (Now that I own
some Megabloks, I can say whatever I want) that is soft and hard to keep
together. I can imagine the complaint call:
“Hello, Megabloks customer service, how can I help you?”
“I bought this kit for my son/daughter, thinking it was LEGO, but when they
opened it, they noticed that the parts were poor quality compared to LEGO, and
they fall apart really easily. Is there a way to get a refund or an exchange for
the real thing?”
“I’m sorry, we can’t do that.”
“Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll certainly be buying less of
your product in the future!”
clunk
The other problem I see here has little relation to the Megabloks issue and a
lot to do with the media (hence the x-posting) This website is supposedly a news
site, i.e, an impartial participant here to deliver news. This report seems
extremely biased to me - and not because of the content, it is simply because of
the blatant advertising at the bottom of the page for Megabloks. I see no
mention of Lego, and no links so that comparisons can be made by the consumer.
Hmmmmmmmm...
Well, perhaps that’s just how it is. anyway, I will definitely be buying MORE of
LEGO’s product in the future ;)
Cheers,
Matt
“Make it so”
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Hi Matt,
"mat" <mjeffery@seatonhs.sa.edu.au> writes:
>
> The LEGO trademark on the standard brick must have expired years ago,
don't confuse trademarks (which don't expire),
patents (which do 20 years after filing), and
copyright (which expire 70 years ofter the death of the creator).
Here LEGO had a patent on the shape of the blocks, which expired long ago,
but the trademark is invalid because the shape is dictated by
technical requirements.
Jürgen
--
Jürgen Stuber <juergen@jstuber.net>
http://www.jstuber.net/
gnupg key fingerprint = 2767 CA3C 5680 58BA 9A91 23D9 BED6 9A7A AF9E 68B4
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Matthew Jeffery wrote:
| |
The other problem I see here has little relation to the Megabloks issue and a
lot to do with the media (hence the x-posting) This website is supposedly a
news site, i.e, an impartial participant here to deliver news. This report
seems extremely biased to me - and not because of the content, it is simply
because of the blatant advertising at the bottom of the page for Megabloks. I
see no mention of Lego, and no links so that comparisons can be made by the
consumer. Hmmmmmmmm...
|
Impartial? Well, sort of, but not in the way that you seem to think. It’s
called PRNewswire. PR, as in Press Release or Press Relations. This appears
to be a website where various corporations can upload their press releases for
various news agencies to pick up. At the bottom it even says “Issuers of news
releases and not PR Newswire are solely responsible for the accuracy of the
content.” The “article” in question was written by MB employees, which is why
they can get away with pumping their product as “high quality” and linking back
to their own website, while not saying anything good about TLC. Impartiality
only exists by virtue that an opposing view can be posted by any competing
company. In this case, TLC could post a negatively worded version of the same
basic statement, if they feel like it.
I was interested, though, to hear that the original LEGO brick design was
borrowed from someone else. Still, the tubes inside the 2x4 brick were a
LEGO-patented design, and that’s probably the design that’s used by clone
companies. Then again, the top of the LEGO brick is what people remember, not
the inside. You could probably snap a photo of the bottom and cut the
recognition factor by at least half.
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In lugnet.mediawatch, David Laswell wrote:
| |
I was interested, though, to hear that the original LEGO brick design was
borrowed from someone else. Still, the tubes inside the 2x4 brick were a
LEGO-patented design, and that’s probably the design that’s used by clone
companies. Then again, the top of the LEGO brick is what people remember,
not the inside. You could probably snap a photo of the bottom and cut the
recognition factor by at least half.
|
Goodness. I can think of close to a dozen brands that use some variation of the
tubes-and-studs clutch system, so recognition could definitely be a problem!
This item
has been mentioned previously on LUGNET, but it seems relevant to bring it up
again. The article points out that LEGO allowed the patent on the 2x4 brick,
(presumably including the tube/stud system) to expire in 1978, so they opened
the door for imitators. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have renewed the
patent, but now they’re reaping what they’ve sown.
Dave!
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Dave Schuler wrote:
> <http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2003/15/c2327.html This item>
> has been mentioned previously on LUGNET, but it seems relevant to bring it up
> again. The article points out that LEGO allowed the patent on the 2x4 brick,
> (presumably including the tube/stud system) to expire in 1978, so they opened
> the door for imitators. I can't imagine why they wouldn't have renewed the
> patent, but now they're reaping what they've sown.
Uh-- did they really 'allow' it to expire? I was under the impression that the
patent lasted 20 years, then 'tough noogies'. 1958 was the patent year for the
stud-and-tube system, so 1978 would fit the bill...
I was interested to see some of the other imitators from before 1978, though:
http://www.personal.u-net.com/~lilleker/otherpics/lego-t6.jpg
Kinda cool. But even before that, with Lego's predacessors like KiddieCraft,
MiniBrix, etc, it seems like nobody could make the idea of interlocking bricks
take off like Lego did. Seems like Godtfred and maybe even Kjeld were the ones
responsible for making Lego a real hit.
DaveE
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In lugnet.mediawatch, David Eaton wrote:
> In lugnet.mediawatch, Dave Schuler wrote:
> > <http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2003/15/c2327.html This item>
> > has been mentioned previously on LUGNET, but it seems relevant to bring it up
> > again. The article points out that LEGO allowed the patent on the 2x4 brick,
> > (presumably including the tube/stud system) to expire in 1978, so they opened
> > the door for imitators. I can't imagine why they wouldn't have renewed the
> > patent, but now they're reaping what they've sown.
>
> Uh-- did they really 'allow' it to expire? I was under the impression that the
> patent lasted 20 years, then 'tough noogies'. 1958 was the patent year for the
> stud-and-tube system, so 1978 would fit the bill...
Hmm. My mistake. I thought you could renew patents, but I guess not.
> I was interested to see some of the other imitators from before 1978, though:
>
> http://www.personal.u-net.com/~lilleker/otherpics/lego-t6.jpg
>
> Kinda cool. But even before that, with Lego's predacessors like KiddieCraft,
> MiniBrix, etc, it seems like nobody could make the idea of interlocking bricks
> take off like Lego did. Seems like Godtfred and maybe even Kjeld were the ones
> responsible for making Lego a real hit.
Those are pretty neat!
Dave!
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In lugnet.mediawatch, David Eaton wrote:
> Uh-- did they really 'allow' it to expire? I was under the impression that
> the patent lasted 20 years, then 'tough noogies'.
That's only because Mickey Mouse can't be patented. If he could, you'd be able
to renew patents by now. Disney would have seen to it.
> I was interested to see some of the other imitators from before 1978, though:
Since TLC only owned the patent on the fully tubed variety, and none of those
clones seems to use a perfectly identical interior design, I'm betting they were
all trying to skirt around the patent by using slightly different designs. The
split-bottom tubes are similar enough that it's clearly an attempt to do just
that, but the X-bottomed style could be legitimately claimed to have been
developed independantly, and the version with the solid end walls looks pretty
hard to tie back to the original tubed design.
> Kinda cool. But even before that, with Lego's predacessors like KiddieCraft,
> MiniBrix, etc, it seems like nobody could make the idea of interlocking
> bricks take off like Lego did.
Maybe nobody ever really tried to make it as big as TLC did. They even treated
it as a minor line of their toy company for a few decades.
> Seems like Godtfred and maybe even Kjeld were the ones responsible for
> making Lego a real hit.
It's hard to say for sure. There were two major changes in the 50's that opened
the door for the enormous success that was seen later, and Ole Kirk was still in
charge of the company at that time...but one of them, at least, has been
directly credited to Godtfred, and the other happened the same year Ole Kirk
died, so it's hard to say how much he was involved in that.
The first change was the introduction of the "10 characteristics" (Unlimited
play potential; For girls and for boys; Fun for every age; Year-round play;
Healthy and quiet play; Long hours of play; Imagination, creativity,
development; The more LEGO elements, the greater the value; Extra sets
available; Quality in every detail). Godtfred came up with that list after a
toy buyer complained to him that no company offered a "comprehensive toy
system", and only after that list was compiled did they settle on the Automatic
Binding Bricks as being the one product that clearly fit all of those
characteristics. Without that set of clearly defined characteristics, The LEGO
Company might never have bet their money on LEGO bricks.
The second change was the development of the tubed interior, which increased
sales enough that within only a couple of years, they were the most popular toy
in Europe. And without that, they probably would have lost the bet.
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In lugnet.mediawatch, David Laswell wrote:
> Maybe nobody ever really tried to make it as big as TLC did. They even
> treated it as a minor line of their toy company for a few decades.
I dunno about "a few" decades since there was only about an 11 year overlap
before the warehouse fire :) Truth is there were lots of similar products on the
market going back to the early 1930's (about 15-20 years before Automatic
Binding Bricks), and none of them made it big, and Lego was no different until
the late 50's. Nearly the 1st decade of Lego brick sales weren't anything
fantastic.
> > Seems like Godtfred and maybe even Kjeld were the ones responsible for
> > making Lego a real hit.
>
> It's hard to say for sure. There were two major changes in the 50's that
> opened the door for the enormous success that was seen later, and Ole Kirk
> was still in charge of the company at that time...but one of them, at least,
> has been directly credited to Godtfred, and the other happened the same year
> Ole Kirk died, so it's hard to say how much he was involved in that.
(and also 1 year after Hilary Page's death-- I know I read one site that
speculated that there might have been a possible connection between the two
companies considering the immediate innovations on Lego's part, although the
'compensation' Lego paid them later on would seem to contradict that theory.
Guess it would help to know more about how Godtfred got ahold of the KiddieCraft
bricks-- from one site I read it almost sounded like there was some
correspondence between Hilary and Godtfred)
> The first change was the introduction of the "10 characteristics" (Unlimited
> play potential; ..[snip].. Without that set of clearly defined
> characteristics, The LEGO Company might never have bet their money on LEGO
> bricks.
That's my guess. He made the list following the lament of a buyer in the toy
industry, who complained about the lack of a real toy 'system'. It sounds like
this might really have been something merchandisers were generally interested
in, and what helped Lego get its brand awareness out the door.
> The second change was the development of the tubed interior, which increased
> sales enough that within only a couple of years, they were the most popular
> toy in Europe. And without that, they probably would have lost the bet.
(That and adding a few other specialized elements like sloped roofs) My guess is
that was probably less likely Ole Kirk's doing-- By '58 Ole Kirk was ... uh...
darn. Born sometime in the 1890's, I forget when-- but around 60-70. I'd
probably guess the idea came from the younger blood of the company, though not
necessarily Godtfred by any means.
Ole Kirk seems more to be commended for building a strong foundation for the
company-- He managed to grow to a fairly large toy company through a depression
and a war, all from being pretty much completely on his own, without going
under, all from a small backwater town in an equally small country.
DaveE
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In lugnet.mediawatch, David Eaton wrote:
> I dunno about "a few" decades since there was only about an 11 year overlap
> before the warehouse fire :) Truth is there were lots of similar products on
> the market going back to the early 1930's (about 15-20 years before Automatic
> Binding Bricks), and none of them made it big, and Lego was no different
> until the late 50's. Nearly the 1st decade of Lego brick sales weren't
> anything fantastic.
Whoops, you're right. I was thinking back to the beginning of the company, but
the ABBs weren't introduced until '49, and introduction of the stud-and-tube
design in '58 was when they really took off. The warehouse fire in '60 wasn't
really instrumental in the success of the LEGO brick, though, since it was
already the most popular toy in Europe by that time.
> (and also 1 year after Hilary Page's death-- I know I read one site that
> speculated that there might have been a possible connection between the two
> companies considering the immediate innovations on Lego's part, although the
> 'compensation' Lego paid them later on would seem to contradict that theory.
> Guess it would help to know more about how Godtfred got ahold of the
> KiddieCraft bricks-- from one site I read it almost sounded like there was
> some correspondence between Hilary and Godtfred)
Okay, this is all news to me (I only recently found out that TLC didn't invent
the ABBs), but I know that there are times when it's considered to be more cost
effective to pay someone off rather than fight a long and expensive court battle
to prove that you shouldn't have to pay them anything. Especially if there's
any chance that you might lose.
> That's my guess. He made the list following the lament of a buyer in the toy
> industry, who complained about the lack of a real toy 'system'. It sounds
> like this might really have been something merchandisers were generally
> interested in, and what helped Lego get its brand awareness out the door.
I'm not sure if they used the 10 Characteristics as a marketing tool right away,
but it was the defining change that got them to focus on the LEGO brick as the
core product.
> (That and adding a few other specialized elements like sloped roofs)
Hmm, yeah, they did introduce sloped brickes in '58, so those can't be ruled out
as a contributing factor in the sudden bloom in popularity.
> My guess is that was probably less likely Ole Kirk's doing-- By '58 Ole Kirk
> was ... uh... darn. Born sometime in the 1890's, I forget when-- but around
> 60-70. I'd probably guess the idea came from the younger blood of the
> company,
He was still running the company until his death, so without specific info from
TLC it's hard to say whether it was a sudden inspiration, or if it was the
result of an improvement directive handed down from the top.
> though not necessarily Godtfred by any means.
That's true. I don't remember ever reading who actually invented the idea.
Anyone working for the company could have come up with it, but as long as they
were employed by TLC at the time, the company would have first dibs on patenting
the design.
> Ole Kirk seems more to be commended for building a strong foundation for the
> company-- He managed to grow to a fairly large toy company through a
> depression and a war, all from being pretty much completely on his own,
> without going under, all from a small backwater town in an equally small
> country.
Oh, definitely. If Godtfred built the house, Ole Kirk clearly laid the
foundation that it sits on. He started his carpentry business in '16, switched
it over to toy production in '32, coined the LEGO name in '34, set the defining
company policy (Only the best is good enough) in '36, bought the first
injection-molding machine in Denmark in '47, and got them started on ABBs in
'49.
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>
> Since TLC only owned the patent on the fully tubed variety, and none of those
> clones seems to use a perfectly identical interior design, I'm betting they were
> all trying to skirt around the patent by using slightly different designs.
Actually, the original 'tubes patent' explicitly included substituted shapes for
the tubes, such as crosses.
TLG patents even what they will *not* produce, and in this case quite
understandably.
Eric Brok
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
Goodness. I can think of close to a dozen brands that use some variation of
the tubes-and-studs clutch system, so recognition could definitely be a
problem!
|
Well, TLC certainly seems to agree, which is why they’ve been fighting
tooth-and-nail to make everyone else stop making clone bricks.
| |
This item
has been mentioned previously on LUGNET, but it seems relevant to bring it up
again. The article points out that LEGO allowed the patent on the 2x4 brick,
(presumably including the tube/stud system) to expire in 1978, so they opened
the door for imitators. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have renewed the
patent, but now they’re reaping what they’ve sown.
|
Patents expire, whether you want them to or not. The idea is that you can
patent something that you invent so you can actually make your money back
instead of having someone else come along and copy you right out of the gate
with lower prices (since they don’t have R&D costs to cover). Copyright lasts
until X years after you, the creator, die, but Disney has successfully bumped
the date back a number of times in court to the point where I’m not sure if the
copyright on the early Mickey Mouse films (like Steamboat Willie) have expired
yet or not. Trademark lasts as long as you can keep using it, but it has to be
an identifying mark of your brand, not a functional idea. Disney can sorta hide
Mickey behind trademark law as long as they keep using his earliest
“spaghetti-limbed” incarnation in at least one current version of their logo,
since anyone showing Steamboat Willie would be displaying a trademarked icon
without permission. TLC has it a bit harder in that Mickey falls under
copyright law, but the 2x4 brick falls under patent law, and Disney has no major
vested interest in twisting those laws up in knots because they can’t be
directly applied to Mickey.
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Matthew Jeffery wrote:
| |
In lugnet.mediawatch, Erik Olson wrote:
| |
Saw this scroll by on Bloomberg:
Mega Bloks Confirms Cancellation of Lego Shape Mark by European Union
Trademark Office
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-02-2004/0002223318
|
Hey all, back from a long lurk and I see this!
Well, that’s fair enough. The LEGO trademark on the standard brick must have
expired years ago, it’s only the fact that the community automatically
associates said brick design with LEGO that prevented Megabloks taking it for
themselves ages ago. The problem I see here is that if Megabloks go too far
with this, they will start getting their products confused for LEGO’s,
|
This won’t likely happen. Previous lawsuits have ruled that MEGABLOKS has erred
in marketing its product in a way that can confuse the buyer into thinking that
MEGABLOKS are affiliated with or endorsed by LEGO. Therefore, for close to a
decade, MEGABLOKS has been very careful to imply no LEGO endorsement, and LEGO
isn’t even mentioned in the packaging.
| |
(Now that I own some Megabloks, I can say whatever I want) that is soft and
hard to keep together.
|
Just for my own curiosity, would you mind indicating which set you own? As a
fan of that brand, I try to keep informal track of people’s complaints to see
how they mesh with my own experience.
| |
I can imagine the complaint call:
“Hello, Megabloks customer service, how can I help you?”
“I bought this kit for my son/daughter, thinking it was LEGO, but when they
opened it, they noticed that the parts were poor quality compared to LEGO,
and they fall apart really easily. Is there a way to get a refund or an
exchange for the real thing?”
“I’m sorry, we can’t do that.”
“Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll certainly be buying less
of your product in the future!”
|
To be fair, though, that doesn’t seem like much of a backlash. I mean, if the
parent wouldn’t have knowingly bought the MEGABLOKS set in the first place, then
it doesn’t harm MEGABLOKS if the parent buys no additional sets thereafter.
Sure, she can complain to other would-be purchasers, but that’s always been the
case.
| |
The other problem I see here has little relation to the Megabloks issue and a
lot to do with the media (hence the x-posting) This website is supposedly a
news site, i.e, an impartial participant here to deliver news. This report
seems extremely biased to me - and not because of the content, it is simply
because of the blatant advertising at the bottom of the page for Megabloks. I
see no mention of Lego, and no links so that comparisons can be made by the
consumer. Hmmmmmmmm...
|
Now that is a little weird. I guess it can be justified because the “about
MEGABLOKS” info came from the website, and perhaps no one at LEGO.com wanted to
go on record regarding the article. Further, the article isn’t intended as a
compare-for-yourself admonition.
Still, a link to the two parties’ websites would probably have seemed more
even-handed.
Dave!
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
In lugnet.mediawatch, Matthew Jeffery wrote:
| |
The other problem I see here has little relation to the Megabloks issue and
a lot to do with the media (hence the x-posting) This website is supposedly
a news site, i.e, an impartial participant here to deliver news. This report
seems extremely biased to me - and not because of the content, it is simply
because of the blatant advertising at the bottom of the page for Megabloks.
I see no mention of Lego, and no links so that comparisons can be made by
the consumer. Hmmmmmmmm...
|
Now that is a little weird. I guess it can be justified because the
“about MEGABLOKS” info came from the website, and perhaps no one at LEGO.com
wanted to go on record regarding the article. Further, the article isn’t
intended as a compare-for-yourself admonition.
Still, a link to the two parties’ websites would probably have seemed more
even-handed.
|
PR Newswire is a service that distributes raw press releases from myriad
companies, for a fee. The release (above) is straight from MB, hence it’s not
intended to be a fair and balanced news article... rather, it’s that company’s
own raw propoganda, meant to spin the issue their way.
As far as I can tell, LEGO doesn’t use these types of services, at least they
didn’t this time. However, as is usually the case in these types of legal
wrangles, a competing release is available from
LEGO’s press room, which spins the issue to its own advantage - paraphrased as,
“It’s a technicality, and we’ll appeal.”
Personally, I hope LEGO prevails since I’m convinced the brick design truly is
synonymous with the LEGO brand, and that function can’t be separated from brand
recognition. But I’m not a lawyer so my opinions count for zilch. :)
Kelly
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"Dave Schuler" <orrex@excite.com> wrote in message
news:I1xvnx.1pEM@lugnet.com...
> Just for my own curiosity, would you mind indicating which set you own? • As a
> fan of that brand, I try to keep informal track of people's complaints to • see
> how they mesh with my own experience.
>
>
> Dave!
I got one of the smaller 'Dragons' sets just to see what it was like, how
the figs looked and (shh tell noone - if any of the parts would be useable
with LEGO)
I found the build quality to be far superior than the absolute pile of ####
it used to be, but, and its a big but, lets put it in caps BUT .. the way
they had applied the paint to the bricks to define them (drybrushing??)
meant that they would not click together without considerable force. By that
I mean placing one brick on a flat surface and placing one on top with all
my weight. I ended up with 2 pieces which refuse to part and stud marks in
my hand.. I can't see kids doing too well using them. I guess with repeated
use (if you can get them together and apart enough if at all) the paint may
wear off where it shouldn't be, but is it worth bothering ???
--
James Stacey
------
www.minifig.co.uk
Lugnet Member #925
I'm a citizen of Legoland travellin' Incommunicado
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In lugnet.mediawatch, James Stacey wrote:
> "Dave Schuler" <orrex@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:I1xvnx.1pEM@lugnet.com...
> > Just for my own curiosity, would you mind indicating which set you own? As a
> > fan of that brand, I try to keep informal track of people's complaints to see
> > how they mesh with my own experience.
> I got one of the smaller 'Dragons' sets just to see what it was like, how
> the figs looked and (shh tell noone - if any of the parts would be useable
> with LEGO)
> I found the build quality to be far superior than the absolute pile of ####
> it used to be, but, and its a big but, lets put it in caps BUT .. the way
> they had applied the paint to the bricks to define them (drybrushing??)
> meant that they would not click together without considerable force. By that
> I mean placing one brick on a flat surface and placing one on top with all
> my weight. I ended up with 2 pieces which refuse to part and stud marks in
> my hand.. I can't see kids doing too well using them. I guess with repeated
> use (if you can get them together and apart enough if at all) the paint may
> wear off where it shouldn't be, but is it worth bothering ???
As much as I love the trollish Vorgans and some of the Dragons pieces
(particularly the rough-hewn bricks), I really don't care for the painting on a
good many of the elements, and the over-juniorization leaves me cold. Aside
from being a nuisance to render in LDraw (which it is), the painting really does
create problems with clutch power, as you've identified. The juniorized wall
elements are also a pain to work with, and they're too specific in shape to
inspire me to do build with them beyond the official model shown on the box.
Now that I think about it, I have a piece from the Vorgan War Chest that looks
like a rickety wooden ladder, and I don't think it's painted. Or if it is, then
it's only painted to embellish the wood grain along the length, rather than on
the connecting studs. I like the piece for its organic appeance and because the
paint doesn't interfere with the playability.
On the plus side, you can use the stud-marks on your hand to build a staff that
will almost lead you to the Well of Souls.
If MEGABLOKS would release a "troop builder" set of Vorgans and the various
Knights factions, that would be something worth getting. I wish that the
weapons more closely resembled real-world armaments rather; however, I do like
the Vorgan's aboriginal weapons, for some reason.
Dave!
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In lugnet.general, Dave Schuler wrote:
> As much as I love the trollish Vorgans and some of the Dragons pieces
> (particularly the rough-hewn bricks), I really don't care for the painting on a
> good many of the elements, and the over-juniorization leaves me cold. Aside
> from being a nuisance to render in LDraw (which it is), the painting really does
> create problems with clutch power, as you've identified. The juniorized wall
> elements are also a pain to work with, and they're too specific in shape to
> inspire me to do build with them beyond the official model shown on the box.
Actually, I bought the various little metal boxes of figs for use in D&D. I
ended up with a number of little hill pieces, as well as the juniorized wall
segments. I've taken these and used them to make a little tower on one of the
bases, which I use as a pencil/pen holder, which I'm rather fond of.
While playing around with the megablox sets I've gotten from Dragon, I've not
noticed any problem with connecting pieces... but maybe I haven't used them
enough. (Again - mostly got on sale or for the figures.)
> If MEGABLOKS would release a "troop builder" set of Vorgans and the various
> Knights factions, that would be something worth getting. I wish that the
> weapons more closely resembled real-world armaments rather; however, I do like
> the Vorgan's aboriginal weapons, for some reason.
They did release various small metal tins of the figures, though. And I'm quite
fond of the fancy little weapons - again, for D&D. :)
John Fiala
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Erik Olson wrote:
> Saw this scroll by on Bloomberg:
>
> Mega Bloks Confirms Cancellation of Lego Shape Mark by European Union Trademark
> Office
>
> http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-02-2004/0002223318
Interesting story, and I figured that was inevitable. I just wonder why TLC is
planning to appeal the case, for it seems like it will be a waste of money.
I think TLC would be able to better compete with MegaBloks on price if they
didn't spend so much money trying to compete in the courtroom. It seems like
better prices and set designs would help Lego compete in the market better than
trying to make all of their competitors "illegal".
TLC, if you truly believe that "only the best is good enough", you should not be
so afraid of MegaBloks right now. TLC, if you're the best, get out there and
prove it. Create some good models at attractive prices and people will buy them.
You don't need a monopoly to defeat your competitors. Play well.
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