Comment by littlecranky67

The patent expired, but the minifigs is also a EU 3D trademark. This is not possible for the brick which (only) serves a technical function, namely to hold on each other. Trademarks do not expire while in use. Another example for a 3D trademark, also in this US, is the Coca Cola bottle.

[1] https://www.chaillot.com/ip-news/validity-of-3d-trademarks-f...

the minifigure is not patented, but protected by a 3D design mark. design marks don't expire, and attempts to challenge the mark and get it removed so far have not been successful.

LEGO is using design marks to protect all new bricks they create. design marks can just be registered without any review. but they can be challenged, and some of these challenges have been successful.

i highly doubt that. i have never seen a counterfeit lego set with an actual lego logo. even in china that would not be legal. someone would have to specifically target bricklink shops to sell such bricks.

if you get fake bricks you might not open a support case to get the bricks replaced, but you would complain and report that shop. with enough reports coming in someone would look into that. so i feel that this is unlikely to happen. at the worst case it's someone clueless, mixing in alternative brands by accident. but i expect someone doing that intentionally would be shut down quickly by reputation only. i mean, shops get closed simply because they get to many complaints about taking to long to ship.

If a store actually delivers counterfeit bricks, returning them is not relevant. Bricklink stores rely heavily on their reputation, so anyone pulling a stunt like this would have to start over and over again.

> I could also imagine that you can buy china-manufactured parts that carry the lego logo.

It wouldn't gain the manufacturer anything, but cost them in terms of liability. It would also mean they can't sell bricks made with such moulds to any party which very much does not want get into a trademark dispute with the Lego Group. So it is very, very unlikely.

There are plenty of cowboys out there who produce sets which look way too much like Lego sets (boxes and all), and which violate the trademark by having logos which sort of look like the Lego logo if you squint, but bricks with the literal Lego logo on them would blow away any sort of defence based on plausible deniability.

Cobi is more of a model-building company. Their brick-builds are meant to resemble the real-deal just as a plastic model would. Lego (especially Lego Technic) goes deliberately more for a brick-style appearance. Cobi thus creates a lot of custom molded parts to avoid the brick-style look and more of a real-world approximation. I don't think they market creativity, or B-models/custom builds with their products.