LEGO, an example of a winning IP strategy

01. LEGO at a glance

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 yellow men with an iconic smile.

1978

2014

LEGO was ranked No. 1 in toys sold worldwide and in 2015 "the world's most powerful brand" 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 :

Brands

Designs &
Models

Patents

Brands

The history of the LEGO logo

Discover the different LEGO company logos: 16 logos from 1934 to the latest version registered in 1998.

(Scroll to the right to see the logos) →

1930

1936

1939

1946

1950

1952

1953

1954

1955

1958

1960

1965

1973

1998

In 2022, LEGO owned 114 registered trademarks:

Trademarks
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)

Figurative and semi-figurative trademarks

of which :

EU mark
n°000106948

Trademark
EU n°000106948

Three-dimensional markings

of which :

International trademark
n° 1118140

International trademark
n° 1118141

Designs and Models

As of 2022, LEGO owns 2,267 registered and published designs.
Here is an overview of LEGO's worldwide filings and filing strategy:

Patents

In 2022, LEGO holds 961 patents.
Here are some examples of LEGO patents:

Wheel for building set (wo1993008885)

Toy building system to build and operate a remote-controlled toy vehicle model (wo2021037880)

Building set (wo1998011968)

03. Overview of LEGO's IP strategy

Brands

The number of invalidity decisions that LEGO obtained in June 2020 against designs registered by a Bulgarian company on characters or accessories infringing 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 INPI against the trademark LEGOAL n°184452008 for identical and similar goods (OPP 18-3217/SHF 21/01/2019)

Opposition accepted by INPI against the trademark LEGOTEL n°174332218 for identical and similar goods (OPP 17-1547 / REF 21/09/2017)

Opposition refused by the INPI against the trademark VITALEGO n°164321525 for identical and similar goods (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, retold in a beautiful exhibition in Paris, confirms once again the interdependence between a company's success 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:

29%

of all jobs in the EU, i.e. 63 million jobs over the 2014-2016 period.

45%

of EU GDP per year,
or 6.6 trillion euros.

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

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Lego, an example of a winning IP strategy