Cobi, Coco and Mega Bloks; A New Breed of Lego?
Posted: Thursday, November 11, 2010
by Sally Robins
http://www.equestrianoutfitters.co.uk
Lego's patent expired in 1988, but not without controversy as numerous companies attempted to manufacture Lego compatible sets; Coco, Mega Bloks and Cobi.
The Coco brand manufactured by a Chinese company called Tianjin Coko Toy Co., was one of the companies set to take advantage of the patent expiry. They began to produce Lego boxed sets in a variety of fashions in 2000, at a cost far cheaper than its Lego rival.
The company made a national apology to Lego in the Beijing Daily and also pay a compensation amount in damages to the company Interlago AG. The Chinese company obviously sought an appeal, but this was futile with the Beijing Court upholding the trial court's verdict. And again, in 2003 the Lego Group won a similar case against the marketing group Biltema for its sale of Coco products but this time in Norway, on the grounds that the company used product confusion as a marketing tactic.
There was also a storm regarding a large shipment of Legoesque products marketed under the name "Enlighten", this was quickly seized by the Finnish authorities; in this instance the packaging of the products was almost identical to that of Lego sets. Lego won this case as the manufacturer in China did not appear in court, so they won it by default. Lego even stumped up the cost of the disposal to protect its brand name.
It seems the problem lies with the Lego Corporation's limited view of business development and so instead of progressively looking to add value to their existing brand they were more inclined to battle over the patents and copyrights.
Cobi is another manufacturer, based in Poland, supplying Lego type bricks but in the forms of military, historical and pirate creative.
In the past the Lego brand themselves have avoided any war and military aimed sets. However, this has opened the market for Cobi to use this to their advantage.
I work with patent and copyright infringement and I thought that this was a classic case over the years. The toys can be found in the Cobi range at the Royal Armouries Shop and the more specific toys in the Cobi Small Army range.
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