Legal Action on Clone Brands?

[ACPin]

With the proliferation of clone brands mainly from China, it is quite appalling that they're not even hiding anymore the branding on their products. These started first mainly with the minifigs but now they've moved on to the modulars, exclusives and the boxes are straight up rip-offs from the actual products! Some are even released right after TLG products are out in the market. Their products are all out in the open market like Amazon, eBay, social media and they even got their own FB pages!

Is TLG and the other franchise companies doing any legal action to stop them?

[Sven F]

I suppose every company with this problem evaluates the expense of running after them (usually an endless game of whack-a-mole) versus the long term loss of ignoring the issue. The problem for lego is more about reputation damage through potential confusion with real lego, than loss of business.

[MrHerofan]

Well LEGO is the largest toy company in the world so while they could go after these clone brands in the long term it would not be worth while. It makes sense too considering leaks of sets and toy fairs give these clone brands a head start so they can release their sets around the same time LEGO releases theirs. Also where ever these sets are being sold the people buying them probably don't want to chuck down a lot of money on the official set for their kid. So they go to the next best thing because they look the same.

[brickmasterben11]

i agree with MrHeroFan. The main reason clone brands cause such a commotion is because they are a cheaper version of actual LEGO. As for LEGO taking action against them, many clone brands do not use the same version of the bricks or figures as LEGO does, so they are not directly copying LEGO.

[Faefrost]

I'm going to leave this here. As it perfectly frames the problem.

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/06/15/jack-ma-says-fakes-better-quality-and-better-price-than-the-real-names/

This is Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Alibaba. Talking about the issues of counterfeiting. Needless to say Ma's views on the subject seem to parallel Gawkers views on personal privacy.

[ACPin]

Wasn't it in a long time ago that major online sites like eBay forbid counterfeit brands? Maybe TLG can go after the sites for letting these obvious clone brand sellers do business in their sites. Even in the conventions, these products have shown up and not all customers are savvy enough to tell apart from the real products. It doesn't help at all that some sellers wouldn't identify them as such and even sell them at outrageous prices!

AC

[dr_spock]

LEGO Fair Play: http://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/legal-notice/fair-play

Some of them we can - and do - enforce by legal action. Some of them, we wish could be enforced where breaches occur.

[mpfirnhaber]

Hilary Page must be rolling in his grave.

[Faefrost]

Wasn't it in a long time ago that major online sites like eBay forbid counterfeit brands? Maybe TLG can go after the sites for letting these obvious clone brand sellers do business in their sites. Even in the conventions, these products have shown up and not all customers are savvy enough to tell apart from the real products. It doesn't help at all that some sellers wouldn't identify them as such and even sell them at outrageous prices!

AC

The problem is that above and beyond the more classic issues, it has become much more complicated to define infringing items.

- in the old days you had true counterfeits. These would largely involve recasting of existing products or exactly reverse engineering them. This is true counterfeiting. It was very easy to flag as such.

- in the more recent past we ran into the modern Chinese factory problem. They work Monday to Saturday t make your product, then they work Sunday for themselves, using your tooling to run off their own bootlegs. This is clearly a form of theft. Once again reasonably easy to make the call on in the marketplace.

- but then we come to the modern problem. The new one. Here's a great example.

This is WeiJiang's MPP-10 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wei-Jiang-Transformers-G1-MILEPOST-Commander-Masterpiece-MPP10-Optimus-Prime-/281877204670?hash=item41a130cebe:g:lWgAAOSwp5JWZFLI

It is clearly a bootleg of Takara's MP10 Masterpiece Optimus Prime. But WeiJieng did not simply clone the figure. They took its core engineering, reverse engineered it. Scaled it to double the original size. Made some improvements. Changed or improved the materials used (the WeiJiang Bootleg is Die Cast, the original is ABS Plastic.) And released it under their own name. And this is where it gets really really grey. WeiJiang is using their own tooling. They copied the engineering, but not the parts themselves. It is clearly infringing on the Transformers IP, but it isn't a counterfeit. What this means is the Middleman, E-Bay or Amazon cannot act without an underlying complaint. And even then it is a very very grey area. The Chinese company has applied their own transformative changes to the product enough that it is truly distinct in every way from the original. As long as they do not use any clear trademarked indicators, such as the Autobot Logo, they are much harder to fight then the traditional recasters. And it is much harder to keep out of the marketplaces. (Forget E-Bay, the WeiJiang oversized die cast transformers can easily be found on US Amazon.)

[mnpumar]

I hope they take some strong legal action here. All this counterfeiting cheapens the brand

[jonwil]

In regards to the bootlegs (that is, things that try to copy LEGO rather than legitimate clone brands that create their own original items) the main problem is that they are basically all made in China. And its essentially impossible for any western company to enforce their copyrights in China.

So they cant go after the manufacturers. But what LEGO (and IP owners like Disney/Star Wars/Marvel, Warner Bros/DC etc) should be doing is going after listings on eBay, Amazon and other western sites that feature the fakes or bootlegs.

A quick search on eBay (just as an example) shows all sorts of bootlegs for sale (e.g. at least one listing for a "lepin" Cafe Corner knockoff along with a massive number of listings for knock-off Marvel/DC figures). LEGO (and Disney/Warner Bros/etc) could work with eBay through the eBay VERO program such that these listings could be flagged (by LEGO or by people in the community) and could then be taken down. They could also get information from eBay etc and sue the sellers in court.

And they could work with appropriate agencies in different countries to go after (and shut down/sue the owners of/etc) physical retail stores that sell these bootlegs (I have seen such stores with my own eyes at shopping centers in my area but I have no clue if there is even a way to report such things)

[dr_spock]

You can report the store to your local police and they'll investigate. Ours have shutdown stores selling bootleg DVDs and stuff but new stores will soon take its place in the mall.

German Customs do inspect online ordered goods coming into their country as one EB member ordering customs pieces found out: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=119740

[HawkLord]

I would suspect that in the case of minifigures made from specific IPs, that Lego and the IP holder could go after those involved. But I would guess that it's just not financially worth their time and effort.

[Faefrost]

The biggest thing Lego stomps on is anyone using the Lego name or branding. Any Bootleg E-Bay auction do get efficiently hunted down if they use Lego anywhere in their descriptions or search terms. Heck we have had a few members here run afoul of that system. Other things like custom minifigs are harder to police.

[rodiziorobs]

This topic reminds me of an article I read last year on Brickset when TLG filed a complaint in US courts to prevent sale of toys they claimed infringed their minidolls trademark.

I don't know what ever became of it, but the point that is really relevant here is that they filed this complaint only in the US, where the courts can/will actually do something about it. I'm sure if they believed it would do any good they would do the same in China, but they haven't--and probably never will--because nothing would ever come of it.

[Brickadier General]

Wasn't it in a long time ago that major online sites like eBay forbid counterfeit brands? Maybe TLG can go after the sites for letting these obvious clone brand sellers do business in their sites. Even in the conventions, these products have shown up and not all customers are savvy enough to tell apart from the real products. It doesn't help at all that some sellers wouldn't identify them as such and even sell them at outrageous prices!

AC

Counterfeits flourish on eBay; they are just too difficult to regulate. When one seller gets taken down, 3 more take his/her place. Counterfeiting of actual sets in China has been an ongoing problem. Back in the early 2000s, Enlighten was doing 90s LEGO sets, ripping the box art from LEGO. In China, I think this too is difficult to regulate.

I can totally see why this is happening, though. It's been a few years now, but I lived in China and remembered coming across genuine LEGO. Back then, it was retailing for around 30% higher than my home in the U.S. If you consider the purchasing power of the average person in China, a LEGO set is akin to the "Ferrari" of toys. It's a luxury product that few can afford. In come the countereiters...

[Faefrost]

This topic reminds me of an article I read last year on Brickset when TLG filed a complaint in US courts to prevent sale of toys they claimed infringed their minidolls trademark.

I don't know what ever became of it, but the point that is really relevant here is that they filed this complaint only in the US, where the courts can/will actually do something about it. I'm sure if they believed it would do any good they would do the same in China, but they haven't--and probably never will--because nothing would ever come of it.

Lego won that case. A few clone brands were found to be infringing, including the older Megabloks design. (Not the new Monster High ones, which are well outside Lego's designs and IP.)

[jonty14]

Hi. I have just noticed today in Wilkinson's in England that they have their own pick a brick copy!

[MAB]

Wilko's have had their own version of pick a brick for years. Perfectly legal too.

[ACPin]

This has gone too far!

[CopMike]

This has gone too far!

Yeah, they misspelled Star Wars !

At least this one got the name right:

http://www.aliexpres...000017.2.oylaoc

[BrickCurve]

This has gone too far!

It certainly has! The clones are now ripping off the Brick Set logo as well!

http://brickset.com/article/23022/lego-clones-are-now-ripping-off-the-brickset-logo