LEGO
loses
Design protection.
LEGO
loses
Design protection.
from
How independent does a product design really have to be? And why are even visible differences sometimes not enough? The EGC confirms: A rectangular Lego brick has no individual character compared to a square predecessor design. Duplication alone is not enough.
What is it all about?
Lego has failed in design law proceedings before the General Court of the European Union (EGC) against the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The Danish company wanted to prevent the invalidation of one of its EU designs for a toy building block. However, the court confirmed that the contested design lacked the required individual character because it did not create a different overall impression on the informed user than an older, square design.
Qman Toys vs. LEGO
In March 2021, Chinese toy manufacturer Guangdong Qman Toys applied to the EUIPO for a declaration of invalidity of a Lego design. The design applied for in 2008 shows a rectangular building block with two cylindrical studs on the top and a crescent-shaped clamp on one side wall.
As an older design, Qman cited a square brick with only one stud, which was documented on the collectors’ website brickset.com.
The Cancellation Division of the EUIPO declared the Lego design invalid in November 2022. The Board of Appeal confirmed this decision in September 2024, whereupon Lego brought an action before the General Court.
LEGO argued that the Board of Appeal had not sufficiently appreciated the significant differences: the challenged design was rectangular and twice as long as the square predecessor design, and it had two studs instead of one.
Judgment of the EUG on LEGO design
The EGC dismissed with Judgment of 14.01.2026 – Ref. T-628/24 dismissed LEGO’s action. LEGO’s design remains invalid. The brick does not enjoy protection as it lacks the required individual character.
The court did not follow LEGO’s reasoning. It found that in construction systems, two combined squares naturally form a rectangle. The informed user would therefore perceive the challenged design as a continuation of the same pattern established in the earlier design. The additional stud merely reproduced identically an already existing feature and contributed little to the overall impression.
The court was also not convinced by LEGO’s argument that the challenged design had a central cylindrical element on the underside that was missing in the older design. The decisive factor was the type of use: Building blocks from toy building set systems are mainly manipulated from the top. The underside remains hidden most of the time as soon as the building blocks interlock. The court emphasized that the visibility of features during typical use must be taken into account when assessing individual character. The central cylindrical element was therefore merely a subordinate detail in the overall impression.
The only difference resulting from the presence of the central cylindrical element in the contested design is therefore not sufficient to create a different overall impression on the informed user.
The informed user: not a technical expert
The court referred to the case law of the ECJ. This had clarified that the informed user is not a specialist with detailed technical knowledge. His overall impression should not be based primarily on technical considerations, even in the case of designs that fall under the exception for modular systems.
Conclusion
The court clarifies that a mere duplication of an existing design is not sufficient to create a different overall impression. Anyone who merely extends or duplicates a design or adds functional elements on non-visible surfaces must therefore expect that such a design does not have the required individual character.
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