This is probably going to get a letter from LEGO's lawyers.
If you want to be safe do not use the word LEGO. Use Bricks or in German "Klemmbausteine".
Many people have had to deal with LEGO's lawyers and it ain't pretty.
If you want to be safe do not use the word LEGO. Use Bricks or in German "Klemmbausteine".
Many people have had to deal with LEGO's lawyers and it ain't pretty.
Where there is gray area is in them not clearly stating they are unaffiliated with LEGO the company.
OTOH, they also don't seem to be looking to monetize anything, so they are at lower risk from LEGO having a plausible claim that they are hurting their sales.
But then again IANAL, and that is just how I understand the American law, and every country is different.
EU being EU, I can only imagine there's a bunch of particular rules around research that may or may not work in the authors' favor.
https://www.inta.org/fact-sheets/fair-use-of-trademarks-inte...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Page#Kiddicraft
LEGO is based off of earlier designs of interlocking bricks, they are well known because they got really good at affordability, high tolerances, and durability not because they invented the concept. Beyond that the original functional patents have long expired.
1: Never, ever, sell modified Lego bricks: https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-wins-court-case-against-c...
Also, they don’t tend to go after fan-made things like this, based on some googling they typically throw the book at counterfeit producers who are eating into their profits.
In the casinos?
That's where Nintendo is fundamentaly different.
Also don’t forget that Sega was “originally an importer of coin-operated arcade games to Japan and manufacturer of slot machines and jukeboxes”
Sega was mostly into normal arcade games, and Sammy baught them for their expertise to improve Sammy's much more profitable gambling machines. It's Sammy's CEO that took the lead, and Sonic and console games became a mere side business.
They just won the market because historically they reused existing locking bricks concept from a company called Kiddicraft, found a way to make it more lockable... and patent it before the original company and other companies could implement it.
We can say that they became famous half fir engineering reason, and half from their legal department...