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Comment by heavyset_go | Hacker News Reader

LEGO have a very friendly[1] explanation that they must pursue legal action to protect their trademark internationally.

They have rules about using their trademark in names, logos, websites and URLs.

[1] https://www.lego.com/en-sg/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-p...

You broke their rules by not adding a trademark symbol after the word LEGO. You'll be receiving a C&D letter from their legal team shortly. :)

Some of their rules are ridiculous, for instance I have to use all upper case and am not allowed to use the word as a noun, for instance to call them "Legos" (I must say LEGO™ bricks, even though many of the pieces are not at all brick shaped).

Sorry but no.

That said, I'm surprised anyone would think it was a good idea to name their OS "LegoOS" and include pictures of LEGO™ bricks.

They don't want their trademark turning into a noun (or a verb), just like Velcro doesn't want their trademark to be used to refer to "hook and loop" [1]. It's not unreasonable for them to try to protect their trademark.

1 - https://youtu.be/rRi8LptvFZY

Yeah and it's not unreasonable for people to push back and say "I'm going to call them Legos if I want to." Obviously they aren't going to go and sue a mommy blogger because she refers to Legos wrong (much less me saying it on Hacker News), but still.

At least Velcro has a sense of humor about it. They recognize that no one in the real world is going to follow their rules, but they still have to say that they want you to, so the word doesn't get legally genericized.

They probably actually WANT you to use it generically, it helps their brand, since they are only ones allowed to sell it by the word everyone refers to it by. But they can't say that out loud, or it has negative legal repercussions.

I actually agree with you. Both sides are reasonable. I also didn't think of your last paragraph.

Also, I ROFLMAO so hard when I read your comment and then looked up and realized your username was Frosted Flakes!

Trademark, not copyright. These are two very different things with quite different rules.

Ha, oops. I know that, I must be undercaffeinated today. I edited, thanks.

The proper term is Lego elements, not bricks.

Never that term, but that seems like it is even less likely to be used than "bricks."

I meant to say "never heard that term" but it is too late to edit.

If I heard "lego elements" I would guess that it was a new line, like Lego Mindstorms or whatever. I'd think "lego pieces" would be the more realistic thing to expect people to say.

But I'm still gonna call them "legos". And yes me and my daughter have more legos than just about anyone. :)

Thank you for citing this. LEGO is notorious for protecting their trademark. It was a really silly name to use and they will definitely get a C&D quickly.

If LEGO doesn't protect their mark, they may lose the ability to protect it. That's trademark law 101.

Ugh, no, it's not. This is a commonly repeated myth. The circumstances in which you could even possibly lose control of a trademark in this way (genericization, abandonment) are very narrow. A quick search brings up a more detailed explanation than I have time to type up tonight: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...

If you look at the actual trademarks you will see that there is no registration for Operating Systems. Trademarks are only for specific goods and services, you can't globally prevent use of a word.

[1] http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:754... [2] http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:754... [3] http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:754...

IANAL but I don't think that applies to made up words. I can't create a new type of apple and brand them Mozilla Apples

Really makes one wonder how a project like this can go on this long without this obvious problem coming up.

How many hours were spent writing an OS (not a trivial task), plus making this nice looking website and graphics, plus all the research papers cited etc? They even went to a conference!

s/LegoOS/LegOS/g

Edit: snark aside, another user points out that LegOS is taken by a mindstorms operating system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21285290

Which was itself renamed to brickOS at the behest of LEGO:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrickOS

Way back in 2004, I used brickOS via Cygwin to build a LEGO robot capable of playing Connect4... the event was a competition by rtlToronto, jokingly called Deep Yellow. Amazingly, there are some pics still online here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=71985

My vote to rename it DuplOS lol

I think they broke just about every single one of LEGO®'s rules in the trademark section.

When I first read LegoOS, I thought it was an OS made by Lego. I wouldn't be unreasonable considering that they have a software platform with the Mindstorm line.

The fact that confusion is possible goes against the spirit of the trademark law.

Me too. I thought this was going to be about the Lego Mindstorm Robot OS going open source.

Yeah that was honestly what I thought too. Definitely wouldn't be that far fetched for them to do. Or at least something officially endorsed by them.

And here I thought it was a spin on that elf in LTOR.

I wouldn’t blame them. The project even goes as far as to so show LEGO-like bricks on the webpage.

”In the LEGO Group, we believe that any original product design should be protected against copying for as long as it is produced and marketed”

They may believe that, but I’m not aware of any patent law that works that way. I think the design should, after x years, lose design protection (the trademark should exist for at least as long as it sees active use, so copies shouldn’t be allowed to call their product LEGO® or something similar)

>In the LEGO Group, we believe that any original product design should be protected against copying for as long as it is produced and marketed.

I am very glad that The LEGO Group doesn't make the rules then (in so far as they don't, at least)

Time for them to pivot into using the latin verb "legō".

Although they will have to purge the pictures of lego bricks.

Even then they might not be safe. Legal trolls like Bethesda would go after you for making scrollOS.

"If the LEGO trademark is used at all, it should always be used as an adjective, not as a noun."

Finally, a website I can point to people who argue about whether it's "Lego" or "Legos" and I remind them that it's technically neither since it's an adjective, not a noun.

Purdue University is a public university and enjoys state agent protection against law suits.

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