Subject:
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Re: LEGO® Launches Battle Over Trademark
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.mediawatch
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Date:
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Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:53:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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14662 times
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In lugnet.mediawatch, David Eaton wrote:
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I expect that if MegaBloks came first, they might not have enjoyed the same
prominence that LEGO had when their competitor clone brands first started
surfacing. But in that instance, LEGO may have the opportunity to MAKE a
poorly executed idea into a successful product. And in that fictitious case,
should there be any legal issue with LEGO making a copy of the same geometry
as the MegaBlok, only using better, higher-quality plastic, better set
designs, and higher quality all around (packaging, printing, etc)?
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That’s an interesting question to ponder. When LEGO-scale Mega Bloks came
onto the scene, they filled a gap that LEGO had left open. Namely, MB
produced simple sets with large quantities of basic elements in unusual colors,
such as military greens, dark purples, glow-in-the-dark, and several shades of
yellow. I don’t recall what LEGO was putting out at the time (1992-93), but I
know that MB’s offerings included 1200-piece basic tubs as well as Dinobloks
sets that had hundreds of 1x2, 2x2, and 2x4 bricks for under $15.00.
If Mega Bloks had made of a go of it in the hypothetical absence of LEGO, I
wonder what they’d have done differently (assuming that the bricks’ dimensions
remained the same). I suspect that they’d have launched a Town line (which
they’ve never really done, at least not in minifig scale. I suspect also that
their initial choice of plastic would have been of higher quality, but perhaps
not on par with LEGO, and we might not have seen the subsequent improvement to
that quality.
Mega Bloks has also cast a wide net over the years in trying to land a
particularly successful product line. They held the NASCAR license for over a
decade, but they’ve also had a string of flash-in-the-pan themes that never had
the chance to develop (IMO) because they simply couldn’t compete in the market.
Alien Agency was terrific IMO, but it only lasted a year or so.
There’s no way to know, of course, but it’s fun to think about it. And if some
other brand joined the party late with high quality ABS, that company still
might not have survived. Hasbro’s BTR line was made of very good plastic, but
it fizzled after about 18 months. Tandem and Qubo are contemporary brands with
good quality plastic, but they’ve never gained a significant foothold in the US
market.
Honestly, if there’d been no LEGO, we might have seen Tyco Superblocks become
the gold standard overall, instead of just being the gold standard for clone
brands.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: LEGO® Launches Battle Over Trademark
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| (...) Happens now and again. As I recall, toy vehicles that transformed into robots were marketed in the USA with almost no success, but Hasbro took the idea, attached a story line to it, and an animated show, and it took off like wildfire. I expect (...) (15 years ago, 23-Nov-09, to lugnet.mediawatch, FTX)
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