LEGO wins case against German toy manufacturer in EU court

The EU’s General Court has ruled in favour of protecting the LEGO Group’s design for its minifigure bases in Germany, ending a years-long dispute from a rival toy manufacturer.

The 4×3 modified tile (with four studs running along the centre) first appeared in Series 1 of the Collectible Minifigures range back in 2010, and has since spread to countless other LEGO sets. And for nine years, the LEGO Group enjoyed a registered design on the piece in Germany – until rival company Delta Sport Handelskontor appealed to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in 2019.

The EUIPO subsequently annulled the protection for the piece, stating that ‘all the features of appearance of the LEGO brick were solely dictated by the technical function of the product’, according to a press release from the Court of Justice of the European Union. The piece was originally protected as a ‘community design’, which must differ from existing components (and thus novelty, not just technical function, is a strict requirement).

However, the General Court annulled the EUIPO’s decision in 2021, and the EUIPO then rejected Delta Sport Handelskontor’s original application for invalidity, noting that the piece in question benefited from the ‘specific exception laid down in EU law which allowed for the protection of modular systems’. That statement refers to the 2001 ruling on community designs, which allows protection on novelty parts to be renewed every five years (up to a maximum of four times, so protections can last for 25 years total).

The German manufacturer appealed in 2022, but the General Court has now dismissed the claim, ruling that ‘a design is declared invalid only in the case where all its characteristics are excluded from protection’. Delta Sport Handelskontor’s case apparently only cited one of the characteristics of the LEGO element upheld by the EUIPO, so its arguments were considered ‘ineffective’.

The General Court also determined that the German company had not provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the piece should be excluded from the exception protecting modular systems. The 2001 regulation states that protection doesn’t extend to parts not visible during normal use of a product, or which do not in and of themselves offer novelty or individual character.

The 4×3 modified tile, however, is primarily used as a base for Collectible Minifigures – so it’s visible during normal use and fulfils a novelty purpose. The General Court ruled that Delta Sport Handelskontor had not given enough evidence to the contrary, bringing to a close a legal battle that has been running for nearly five years.

For now, anyway: the German company can still appeal to the EU’s top court, the European Court of Justice, against the General Court’s judgement. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

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Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.

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