Lego vs Louise Lego
Lego, the iconic Danish maker of plastic toy bricks, lost a brand infringement case today when Denmark’s Supreme Court ruled an art gallery owner could use the Lego name since it was her surname.
The high court decided that Louise Lego could continue using the name for her Copenhagen gallery, Gallery Lego, where she displays her own paintings, and her website, http://www.galleri-lego.dk.
The toymaker, founded in 1932, had argued it had the exclusive rights to the Lego name.
Its use of Lego stems from the contraction of the Danish phrase “Leg godt” which means “play well,” and has nothing to do with the Lego family.
The company also wanted Louise Lego to stop promoting her gallery online under the Lego name.
But the court found that there was little risk that people would confuse Louise Lego’s paintings and artworks with Lego toys.
The toymaker was ordered to pay Louise Lego 150,000 kroner ($A31,500) to cover her court costs.
I have to say that I agree with this decision, you can’t really tell people to not use their own names. So I am off to change my name to Mr Google 😉
Dave Starr --- ROI Guy says:
Interesting case … and decision. Ms. Lego was fortunate. here in the US a number of companies (McDonalds very notably) have been very successful in winning against folks using their own surnames in apparent competition with the trademark holder. On the street as well as on the ‘Net.
Great field for a lawyer to get into, tough, because these cases are never open and shut … and in the US it only costs about $75 to $100 to legally change your name …..
Domain Flipping says:
Finally someone who can write a good blog ! . This is the kind of information that is useful to those want to increase their SERP’s.
I loved your post and will be telling others about it. Subscribing to your RSS feed now. Thanks