November and December 2018.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Warehouse took the Zuru bricks off the shelves and they were replaced with products that contained the general compatibility statement and did not mention Lego.<\/p>\n
![\"Figures]()
Figures from Zuru’s Max Build More 750-piece construction set. Screenshot \/ YouTube<\/p>\n
However, Zuru reintroduced the Lego reference on its branding in 2021, leading to another round of legal letters and warnings between the two toy companies and The Warehouse.<\/p>\n
Zuru sought a High Court ruling to declare its packaging did not infringe on Lego\u2019s trademark.<\/p>\n
The Kiwi rich-listers lost and then appealed the ruling. <\/p>\n
In an Appeal Court judgment released today, it was found Zuru had been successful and its conduct did not infringe on Lego\u2019s trademark. <\/p>\n
Justices Rebecca Ellis and Matthew Palmer said they disagreed with the High Court\u2019s conclusion that Zuru used Lego as a trademark, because the New Zealand company used the mark to distinguish its own products from others in the field and not in a purely descriptive manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it may be that the fact Zuru\u2019s bricks are compatible with Lego bricks does (as a matter of fact) distinguish them from others, telling consumers this does not constitute use of the Lego mark in a manner that renders it likely to be taken as indicating the origin of Zuru\u2019s bricks.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The Court of Appeal today overturned a 2023 ruling by the High Court. Photo \/ Mike Tweed<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our view, when use of Lego is seen in its full context, the consumer would think that Zuru\u2019s bricks were Max Build More bricks.\u201c<\/p>\n
Ellis and Palmer said \u201conly an implausible chain of reasoning\u201d would cause a shopper to be misled or confused by the compatibility statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumers in the 21st century are not easily fooled, are brand-aware and would not reasonably think Zuru\u2019s products were made by or associated with Lego.\u201d <\/p>\n
They said consumers would recognise toys displayed under the Max Build More bricks label were different products to those made by Lego.<\/p>\n
Lego has been manufacturing building bricks for nearly 90 years and sells them in 140 countries.<\/p>\n
Zuru has built up a multimillion-dollar global toy business over the past two decades. Most of its manufacturing and staff are in China and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dispute timeline It did not take long for Lego to react when it discovered the use of its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,9092,6375,5837,37171,138,113275,13313,2454,194,15405,6712,15520,111,139,69,1523,110623,113276,57196,6202,15123,1525],"class_list":["post-176756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-against","tag-appeal","tag-battle","tag-brick","tag-business","tag-compatible","tag-giant","tag-industry","tag-kiwi","tag-label","tag-legal","tag-lego","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-stoush","tag-toymaker","tag-trademark","tag-wins","tag-yearslong","tag-zuru"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}