Hunter, Dan; Thomas, Julian --- "Lego’s system of play meets intellectual property: from the engineered object to digital media" [2017] ELECD 306; in Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam (eds), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 317

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment

Editor(s): Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710781

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Lego’s system of play meets intellectual property: from the engineered object to digital media

Author(s): Hunter, Dan; Thomas, Julian

Number of pages: 27

Abstract/Description:

On 28 January 1958, a small company from a small European country applied for a patent over a small plastic brick. The Lego brick has since been produced in the tens of billions. This branded, coloured, moulded and heat-treated piece of polymer remains the foundation of what is now a large and highly successful global entertainment business. Lego’s continuing control over the hugely popular brick depends on the international legal framework of intellectual property protection, and in the early life of the brick, the Lego company had control over the brick and the ‘System of Play’. But as the patents on the Lego brick began to expire in the mid-1970s, the company had to change its approach. It sought ongoing protection by drawing upon the resources of the wider system of intellectual property law, and so the history of Lego – the company and its products – shows how the law has shaped the development of both this company and a larger economic evolution. The Lego brick has been produced since the mid-1950s and, at least in its basic form, is largely unchanged to this day. In that time, intellectual property regimes have been transformed from a small set of narrow legal fields that accounted for a tiny percentage of global trade, to a foundation of contemporary capitalism. The Lego company and its bricks have been involved in all parts of that transformation. This chapter therefore sketches the intellectual property history of Lego.