Focus
Lego IP
& IP

Lego, an example of a winning IP strategy

01. LEGO in a few words
1932
Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish carpenter, decided after the economic crisis of the 30s to create miniatures of his furniture, then wooden toys.
LEGO creates its first plastic toys.
1936
1949
LEGO produces its first bricks.
LEGO creates the yellow men with an iconic smile.
1978
2014
LEGO was ranked #1 in toys sold worldwide and in 2015 "the most powerful brand in the world" by Brand Finance.
02. The keys to LEGO's success: innovation
LEGO's success lies in its ability to innovate and in its strategy of protecting its creations, in particular by :
The Brands
The short history of the LEGO logo
Discover the different logos of the LEGO company: 16 logos from 1934 to the last version registered in 1998.
(Scroll to the right for logos) →
1930
1936
1939
1946
1950
1952
1953
1953
1954
1955
1955
1958
1960
1965
1973
1998
In 2022, LEGO owns 114 registered trademarks:
51
Marks
verbal
Marks
verbal
including :
" LEGO EDUCATION " (EU trademark n°018110883)
" LEGOVILLE " (FR trademark n°1344789)
"Thinking with your hands and listening with your eyes" (EU trademark n°006361356)
52
Figurative and semi-figurative marks
Figurative and semi-figurative marks
of which :
Lego Brand ue
EU Mark
n°000106948
Mark
EU n°000106948
03
Three-dimensional marks
Three-dimensional marks
of which :
Lego Three-dimensional marks
International trademark
n° 1118140
Lego Three-dimensional marks
International trademark
n° 1118141
Designs and Models
As of 2022, LEGO owns 2267 registered and published designs.
Here is an overview of LEGO's filings and filing strategy worldwide:  
Patents
In 2022, LEGO holds 961 patents.
Here are some examples of patents filed by LEGO:
Lego Patent
Wheel for a construction set (wo1993008885)
Lego Patent
Toy building system to build and operate a remote controlled toy vehicle model (wo2021037880)
Lego Patent
Building set (wo1998011968)
03. Overview of LEGO's IP strategy  
The Brands
51
This is the number of invalidity decisions that LEGO obtained in June 2020 against designs filed by a Bulgarian company on characters or accessories constituting infringements of LEGO products (decision of June 30, 2020 - EUIPO).

Example:
Previous model
LEGO
Contested model
Designs and Models
Some examples of oppositions filed by LEGO against third party trademarks (2014 - 2022):
Opposition refused by the INPI against the trademark LEGOAL n°184452008 for identical and similar products (OPP 18-3217/SHF 21/01/2019)
Opposition accepted by the INPI against the trademark LEGOTEL n°174332218 for identical and similar products (OPP 17-1547 / REF 21/09/2017)
Opposition refused by the INPI against the trademark VITALEGO n°164321525 for identical and similar products (OPP 17-0966/DDL 31/08/2017)
Opposition accepted by the INPI against the trademark LEGO CAFÉ n°1186434 for identical and similar products (OPP 14-1211)
04. In conclusion
This fabulous saga, retraced by a beautiful exhibition in Paris, confirms once again the interdependence between the success of a company and the performance of its intellectual property strategy .
A joint report by the EPO and EUIPO, published on September 25, 2019, shows that over the period 2014-2016, Intellectual Property Rights intensive industries generated:
EPOEUIPO
29%
of all jobs in the EU or 63 million jobs over the period 2014-2016.
45%
of EU GDP per year,
or 6.6 trillion euros.

Is your company thinking about its intellectual property strategy? Let's discuss it!
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