Lego loses EU trademark
By Staff -- Playthings, 11/12/2008 11:32:00 PM
LUXEMBOURG—Lego this week lost its latest effort to retain the trademark rights to its iconic building brick in the European Union.
In a decision handed down on Nov. 12, the European Court of First Instance rejected Lego’s claim that the design of its studded building brick made it “highly distinctive” and therefore worthy of retaining the trademark status it was granted in 1999. Instead, the court upheld the argument by Mega Brands that Lego’s brick trademark should be invalid because the brick’s design was primarily functional and, according to EU law, trademarks can’t be granted to objects designed primarily for a “technical result.”
In its decision, the court explained that EU law “pursues an aim which is in the public interest, namely that a shape whose essential characteristics perform a technical function…may be freely used by all.”
Lego has one last chance to appeal the decision and, according to a company spokesperson, expects to do so.
In 2006, an EU trademark commission first denied Lego’s request for continued trademark protection for its brick design four years after a European Court decision clarified whether shapes created for a purely technical function could be trademarked.
Lego’s patent on its building brick expired in 1978.
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