Questions regarding to trademarks of Lego sub-themes

[yorkc1215]

Recently I've been wondering whether the sub-themes of Lego are protected. I know some of them are trademarked, i.e. Ninjago and The Lego Movie. But can people use, for instance, Power Miner logo in their fan merchandise or videos (without using the Lego logo obviously)?

Thanks 

[Mylenium]

You will have to check your local legal regulations regarding "fair use" and all that stuff. This question cannot be answered easily and universally. A logo isn't just a trademark, it's also artwork and that alone could mean that it may not be legal to use it freely under one law, but another law may still prohibit it. Furthermore you'd have to differentiate between commercial and non-commercial use. It may be totally fair to produce a T-Shirt using a LEGO trademark to express you fandom, but you would still not be allowed to sell it as merchandise without LEGO's express permission even for deprecated/ inactive trademarks. Again: No simple answers here so I would suggest you check with a Taiwanese copyright lawyer, check respective legal websites in your country and contact the regional LEGO representratives.

Mylenium

Edited April 28, 2019 by Mylenium
Typos 'n stuff

[TeriXeri]

I do see some themes have an extra Trademark, like Ninjago, Nexo Knights and Friends show a TM in their logos, but those themes also had a TV show.

Even goes further for themes like The LEGO Movie 1/2 or Ninjago Movie, which have more parties involved.

Found a link with some official info:

https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/legal-notice/fair-play

On my country's LEGO Store website some logos might not show ® or ™ in the logos, however it  still names them in the themes list :

Example : Technic™ , DUPLO®  

It's kind of inconsistent, like it doesn't show a trademark for "DC Super Heroes", however on the product names it certainly protects individual heroes : Superman™ Batman™ Cyborg™

However when it comes to Spider-Man, or Iron Man, nothing is shown in text, but  it's still part of Marvel of course.

As for Power Miners and older in-house themes, I have no idea how those are handled, but I expect them to not be much different from the Technic or Duplo policy which have been around for a long long time.

Edited April 28, 2019 by TeriXeri

[yorkc1215]

@Mylenium @TeriXeri Thank you for the replies.