Best-Lock Group Ltd.
TypePrivate
Founded1997
FounderTorsten Geller
Headquarters
Colne
,
England
Number of locations
6
Key people
  • Torsten Geller (CEO)
  • Ben Page
  • (Managing Director UK)
  • Sven Hasselberg
  • (Managing Director Germany)
  • Jan Geller
  • (Head of Global Design and MD Germany)
ProductsToys
SubsidiariesCobi (part)
Websitebest-lock.com

Best-Lock Construction Toys is a brand of plastic building bricks that are compatible with Lego. Best-Lock Group Limited, which manufacture the bricks, is based in Colne, Lancashire, England.

History

Best-Lock was founded in 1997 by Torsten Geller after he looked into the legalities of Lego and other clones, which led him to look into Lego's past to find that Lego had copied their bricks from a British psychologist and inventor Hilary Page in the 1940s.[1][2]

Best-Lock has been involved with multiple legal cases involving Lego. The company moved in 1998 against Lego's exclusivity claims to toy-block design. Best-Lock won the case in court thus allowing them to sell sets in Germany.[2] They defeated a patent challenge from Lego in 2004.[3][4] In a further case in 2009, Lego was denied trademark protection for the shape of its bricks.[5]

Best-Lock and Cobi, a Polish building block manufacturer with a strong presence in Eastern Europe and Asia, announced a merger on 2 February 2006, in which Best-Lock purchased a part of Cobi. Plans called for Best-Lock to shift manufacturing to Cobi while Cobi expanded its manufacturing facilities. The merger has since yielded co-branded building block toys. Toys are still sold under the separate labels Best-Lock and Cobi, but many Cobi sets appear in North American retailers such as Toys R' Us and Amazon.com under the Best-Lock brand.[6]

In 2000, Lego filed a three-dimensional trademark for its mini-figures, which Best Lock had duplicated since 1998. Thus in 2012, Best-Lock sued to get the trademark revoked. On 16 June 2015, European Court of Justice upheld Lego's figure trademark.[7][8]

Products

Best-Lock offers different sized blocks including standard blocks, Junior Blocks (young children 2–5), and Baby Blocks (For kids 0–2). Themes for standard blocks include town sets (police, fire and construction), military, pirates, farming, and Kimmy (Best-Lock sets made for females). Licensed sets include The Terminator and Stargate SG-1 themes.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lee, Mara (29 January 2012). "Blocking And Tackling: A Nasty LEGO Copyright Battle". Hartford Courant. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  2. 1 2 Seay, Gregory (30 January 2012). "Lego locked in domestic copyright fight". Hartford Business Journal. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  3. ↑ "Forty-year Monopolistic LEGO-Doctrine Ruling Reversed as Best-Lock Europe LTD Wins Patent and Trademark Case". Highbeam. 28 March 2005. Archived from the original on 25 February 2016. Retrieved 9 October 2012.
  4. ↑ "Pressemitteilung Nr. 147/04 vom 3.12.2004". Juris.bundesgerichtshof.de. Retrieved 9 October 2012.
  5. ↑ von RA Dennis Breuer (19 April 2012). "Pressemitteilung des BGH Nr. 158/2009: Legostein als Marke gelöscht | markenmagazin:recht". Markenmagazin.de. Retrieved 9 October 2012.
  6. ↑ "Best Lock Group Ltd. Is Pleased to Announce Its Merger with Cobi". Business Wire. 7 February 2006. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  7. ↑ Butler, Sarah (16 June 2015). "Lego blocks legal bid to remove trademark protection for its mini-figures". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  8. ↑ "EU court rules Lego figurines are protected trademark". 16 June 2015.


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