New Mould Discussion

[anothergol]

10 hours ago, Lyichir said:

The 1x4 and 1x3 cheese slopes are visible in the Speed Champions DeLorean revealed today.

Yeah, as well as the new 7674 bracket that appeared in the LDD months ago!

So, while I'm getting a lawfirm representing LEGO telling me that the reason why customs have been seizing all my last Sembo sets was because they infringed on their apollo stud (it's not a joke, they protected the 1x1 stud with hole in order to ban pretty much all competition), THEY do not seem to mind coming up with parts that the competition has had for years.
At least the 1x3 cheese slope is "new" (as much as these can be "new", I mean, 1x5 cheese slope, here, "new part idea")

[Xfing]

Yeah, I've been following New Elementary and Lego have been slowly catching up on some moulds, but looking at these - most of them look so obvious that it's mind-boggling it took them so long to bring them in. Competitor brands have a decade-long lead on Lego in regards to many of these, especially as far as slopes, tiles and curves are concerned. Lego are making a respectable effort, though. It's kinda fun how recently they introduced something as obvious as a 1x3 Technic brick with 3 holes. 

But what I was reminded of are studless slopes bigger than the cheese ones. It's ok to want to extend the cheese family, but for example Cobi have been doing 2x2 and 2x4 slopes with no studs on top, different heights too (3 plates vs 2 plates etc). I wonder if Lego ever want to make ones like those. Cobi uses them en masse to finish out the hulls of their tanks - while I understand Lego were never quite as obsessed about leaving no visible studs as Cobi were, those would still be worthwhile aesthetic additions - especially given that Lego have been more than eager to make just that but curved rather than angled.

EDIT: checked out the category on Rebrickable and apparently there's part 5404 from 2024 (Slope 18° 2 x 1 x 2/3), which may count as a possible beginning of such a line of parts.

Edited October 29, 2025 by Xfing

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Xfing said:

Yeah, I've been following New Elementary and Lego have been slowly catching up on some moulds, but looking at these - most of them look so obvious that it's mind-boggling it took them so long to bring them in. Competitor brands have a decade-long lead on Lego in regards to many of these, especially as far as slopes, tiles and curves are concerned. Lego are making a respectable effort, though. It's kinda fun how recently they introduced something as obvious as a 1x3 Technic brick with 3 holes. 
 

I think there are sometimes obvious parts to make but I guess the issue is are they really needed enough to be introduced. Then all of a sudden there are enough designs that can use them and so they produce them. There might also be a factor of new is good as people want new stuff.

Take the obvious 1x5 plate. That's been around about 5 years now. I have a number of them and use them, but I don't think I ever actually needed to use one as opposed to some other combination of previously existing plates. The 1x7 is the next obvious one but necessary? Probably not. 

[icm]

I would be happy to have a complete line of 1xN plates and tiles, like Cobi has.

[Xfing]

I suppose Lego never wanted to go heavy on odd-length plates since System builds are even-width (since otherwise you couldn't seat a minifig centrally). Cobi on the other hand go absolutely ham on those, since their tanks are odd-width, which explains it entirely. 

[anothergol]

On 10/29/2025 at 11:09 AM, Xfing said:

EDIT: checked out the category on Rebrickable and apparently there's part 5404 from 2024 (Slope 18° 2 x 1 x 2/3), which may count as a possible beginning of such a line of parts.

Not really, the problem with LEGO's slopes is that they nearly all use the same "half plate" start, instead of full plate like other brands, and they do this by design (for legacy reasons, since all those slopes started as roof tiles). So with pure LEGO you will always have to go through hoops (not saying it's that complex, but it takes precious room) in other to smoothly chain slope parts, while with other brands you just stack them. 

Ironically if you search on Ali you'll find a lot of sellers showing that 5404 part on their pictures, except it's actually not a 5404 that they're selling, it's a much more useful version with a full plate start.
The only exceptions we have as pure LEGO are arches such as 70681.

 

19 hours ago, Xfing said:

I suppose Lego never wanted to go heavy on odd-length plates since System builds are even-width (since otherwise you couldn't seat a minifig centrally). Cobi on the other hand go absolutely ham on those, since their tanks are odd-width, which explains it entirely. 

I think we're way past beyond that, especially when nowadays we fit 2 minifigs inside cars and that's best achieved with an odd length (at least inside). 

I use 1x5's all the time, and LEGO sets definitely do too. I'm missing 1x5 tiles, which.. yeah.. some brands do have. 

[Mylenium]

On 10/29/2025 at 1:11 PM, MAB said:

I think there are sometimes obvious parts to make but I guess the issue is are they really needed enough to be introduced. Then all of a sudden there are enough designs that can use them and so they produce them. There might also be a factor of new is good as people want new stuff.

That's one side of the argument and the other simply is that with their recent move to more collectible display models they have less and less excuses to leave models with obvious gaps. In the past the likely wouldn't have bothered with producing a 2 x 2 plate with a rounded corner since the existing one with the cropped corner structurally works well enough and the unfilled areas are not that big, but of course that reasoning changes when you sell models worth hundreds of Euro. Let's also not forget that in that area they are competing even more with the likes of COBI and others who had some of those pieces for years. There's also an apparent third reason: New designs can be registered and protected. So from a simple viewpoint of spoiling it for the competition it can make sense to have a new element and/ or replace an older one with a new design.

Mylenium

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

There's also an apparent third reason: New designs can be registered and protected. So from a simple viewpoint of spoiling it for the competition it can make sense to have a new element and/ or replace an older one with a new design.

For truly new design parts especially with a novel function I can imagine there is some of that. But filling in obvious gaps especially in ranges that other brands produce, I doubt that would spoil it. If someone else does a 1x9 plate I doubt that would stop lego or vice versa. 

[Xfing]

Well, there is one sloped tile part with a 2x2 start, the 3043, which has endured all the way since 1958. It's not exactly the same thing as what we've discussed though, and probably functionally equivalent to two 1x2 cheese slopes put against each other.

But I also agree that with Lego's move away from play features and more towards shelf models in the vein of Cobi, they might be incentivized to start introducing some of the pieces that competition's been using for years. If you look at New Elementary, it seems like that's exactly what they've been doing. All those new moulds feel distinctly like something I've seen used by clone brands before.

[Mylenium]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

For truly new design parts especially with a novel function I can imagine there is some of that. But filling in obvious gaps especially in ranges that other brands produce, I doubt that would spoil it. If someone else does a 1x9 plate I doubt that would stop lego or vice versa. 

That would open up that whole can of worms about all the legalese. True, a 1 x 9 plate would be obvious, but you'd still have to potentially combat a design registration by LEGO to get the restrictions lifted. Unfortunately the whole system is backwards and LEGO are masterfully exploiting this to a T.

Mylenium

[anothergol]

On 10/31/2025 at 5:02 PM, Mylenium said:

That would open up that whole can of worms about all the legalese. True, a 1 x 9 plate would be obvious, but you'd still have to potentially combat a design registration by LEGO to get the restrictions lifted. Unfortunately the whole system is backwards and LEGO are masterfully exploiting this to a T.

Makes me laugh that LEGO complains about rules being unfair TO THEM, and that they acknowledge the loopholes in intellectual property, but in their DISADVANTAGE lol. 
https://www.lego.com/en-be/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-play

If EUIPO even accepted designs like the 1x5 plate in the first place, it's either that their rules are idiotic, or (most likely) it's corruption. Designs that arise from basic logic instead of human creativity should just not be patentable. 
In these days of AI, there are even debates around what makes an AI piece of work protectable, it normally requires some amount of human interaction. A 1xn plate requires pretty much no human interaction, a basic algorithm can design that.

And when you check which designs LEGO has protected, you would think that they protected "creative" parts, like hair pieces or whatever. But no! They mostly protected the most basic & useful parts. If they put so much money into fighting to keep the apollo stud protected, it's so that they can pretty much trap every competitor, since it's such a basic part that you'll find one in pretty much every set out there.
It can be fought, though. I've had Sembo sets seized & destroyed because of that apollo stud, while in fact the clone one wasn't an exact copy, it was a perfectly round hole vs octagonal for LEGO (now Sembo sadly does have perfect copies of some still protected LEGO parts [without the branding obviously], while they could have easily introduced some differences).

It's fortunate that LEGO mostly bothered with minifig accessories so far and other brands already have a more advanced system, so that the most important parts have already been made. I've never encountered a 1x9 though, but I wouldn't be surprised if it already exists. It's more an "ease of building" decision not to produce them, at the end of the day. 

 

[Mylenium]

11 hours ago, anothergol said:

their rules are idiotic, or (most likely) it's corruption.

Both? The simple truth is that design registrations are "blind" and highly automated. Nobody really looks at them unless someone complains. So unless LEGO's competitors get their act together and really pick up the baton to combat this, not much will happen. That's ultimately what riles me up all the time. They complain all the time that LEGO is making their life hard, but nobody seems to be willing to put their money where their mouth is and actually follow through with formal proceedings...

Mylenium

[anothergol]

9 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Both? The simple truth is that design registrations are "blind" and highly automated. Nobody really looks at them unless someone complains. So unless LEGO's competitors get their act together and really pick up the baton to combat this, not much will happen. That's ultimately what riles me up all the time. They complain all the time that LEGO is making their life hard, but nobody seems to be willing to put their money where their mouth is and actually follow through with formal proceedings...

Well they do, if you look at the designs some of them have a long history of attempts to get them invalidated. Like the apollo stud which still has an ongoing one I believe (EUIPO is hard to understand, most of the time it only seems to list events with no details).
If you read on the 2 ones on the apollo stud, they argue that the part is more or less the same as the long-expired 1x1 with full stud. Which I don't agree with - I think it's the wrong approach. A better approach would be to claim that the design of the part is purely based on its basic use, that it's more logic than design.

+ the infamous 2x3 plate case https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-03/cp210048en.pdf

& who has LEGO's money to waste on lawyers? I know I could totally have fought against them seizing my imports in court, that would have been a big waste of money that I'd rather spend on finding other ways to get those sets.

What does surprise me is that I've tried to find designs registered by other brands & couldn't find much. Even from Cobi? That would be the proper way to annoy LEGO. 

Edited November 2, 2025 by anothergol

[Mylenium]

22 hours ago, anothergol said:

What does surprise me is that I've tried to find designs registered by other brands & couldn't find much. Even from Cobi? That would be the proper way to annoy LEGO. 

„Prior Art“ is still a thing. As long as you can prove that something has been used before it was registered, it automatically invalidates any protection, be that as a patent or just a design. Therefore arguably LEGO registering pieces long before they are appear in sets could be construed as malicious intent to hinder competition, which as per the EUIPO's own rules should actually be a reason to deny the protection. They just completely ignore that, which shows ho dysfunctional the whole system is and how incompetent they are. That also applies to your Apollo-Stud. Ultimately it's an inescapable technical solution, not a design thing. I'm too lazy to dig into this, but I suspect that is the point they failed to get across successfully by not illustrating some strong use cases...

Mylenium

[Toastie]

On 11/2/2025 at 5:49 PM, anothergol said:

What does surprise me is that I've tried to find designs registered by other brands & couldn't find much. Even from Cobi? That would be the proper way to annoy LEGO.

Repeated quote 

What about Cobi/CaDA/etc. are simply not caring about TLG copying? They just make new designs (or whatever it is called in the legal world), and sell sets using it. There are two things (as far as I am concerned): When a) TLG uses the stolen designs in their own sets, they are as bad as any other "knock-off" and that could be nicely thrown at them (but no die hard would care, I know) and b) maybe having far, far less heavily overpaid legal superstars on their payroll saves them a sh*t load of money so that they can hire more creative and well-educated designers, who simply come-up with new designs at a pace that keeps TLG busy with copying.

I am kidding, of course. On second thought though ... no, I am kidding.  

Best
Thorsten

[MAB]

59 minutes ago, Toastie said:

Repeated quote 

What about Cobi/CaDA/etc. are simply not caring about TLG copying? They just make new designs (or whatever it is called in the legal world), and sell sets using it. There are two things (as far as I am concerned): When a) TLG uses the stolen designs in their own sets, they are as bad as any other "knock-off" and that could be nicely thrown at them (but no die hard would care, I know) and b) maybe having far, far less heavily overpaid legal superstars on their payroll saves them a sh*t load of money so that they can hire more creative and well-educated designers, who simply come-up with new designs at a pace that keeps TLG busy with copying.

I am kidding, of course. On second thought though ... no, I am kidding. 

There probably is a fair bit of truth in it about not needing to spend money on patents and lawyers. If they make a new plate that is say and L shape and the mirror inverse as they need it for a particular build, so what if another company copies it. Instead of paying for legal, they get on with the set design instead and so what if another company uses a fairly obvious design. Having that part and stopping others from using it is not going to stop people buying from other companies so there is no real advantage to protecting it.

[anothergol]

15 hours ago, Mylenium said:

„Prior Art“ is still a thing. As long as you can prove that something has been used before it was registered, it automatically invalidates any protection, be that as a patent or just a design. Therefore arguably LEGO registering pieces long before they are appear in sets could be construed as malicious intent to hinder competition, which as per the EUIPO's own rules should actually be a reason to deny the protection. They just completely ignore that, which shows ho dysfunctional the whole system is and how incompetent they are. That also applies to your Apollo-Stud. Ultimately it's an inescapable technical solution, not a design thing. I'm too lazy to dig into this, but I suspect that is the point they failed to get across successfully by not illustrating some strong use cases...

Mylenium

But "prior art" doesn't annoy LEGO. They just can't register the part, but they can use it.

What other brands should do/have done is register the parts, so that LEGO *cannot* use them other than after agreements. 
It's just a weapon, no one uses it if everyone has it.

[anothergol]

10 hours ago, MAB said:

Having that part and stopping others from using it is not going to stop people buying from other companies so there is no real advantage to protecting it.

Well I wouldn't be complaining if all these were fights between company lawyers and we were still free to buy from all brands. 

But that's not the case, LEGO is having sets from other brands seized & destroyed, because they contain an apollo stud (which is kinda hard to just avoid). Not counting that when you order a set, it's nearly impossible to know all of the parts inside.

 

In the documents I was sent btw, there was this bit:

The Court of Justice of the European Union recently confirmed in its
judgment of 4 September 2025 that the fact that an infringement relates
only to some of the pieces of a modular system (building set), the number
of which is small in relation to the total number of that system, does not
exempt the infringer from injunctive relief and enforcement measures
(CJEU 4 September 2025, C-211/24, LEGO / Pozitiv EnergiaForras, para.
66).

...which might be the reason why LEGO is doing that more these days.

However, I just took a look at that case, or at least what I could find about it, and it's insane, the parts are not even the same moulds at all! They just have the same functions!

https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2025/09/another-brick-in-wall-there-is-no.html

That doesn't make sense to me though.

LEGO can't seriously pretend that this:

is infringing on this design patent:

...but then also fight in court about how the apollo stud is a totally different beast than the old 1x1 round plate. (& perhaps that brand should simply have made the top studs hollow, I don't know how harder it is to mould that, but this is where other brands could beat LEGO: hollow studs everywhere, MOCers would welcome that)

Edited November 4, 2025 by anothergol

[SpacePolice89]

As long as it's keeping the fakes away I won't complain.

[Yperio_Bricks]

LEGO isn't the most innovative company anymore, nor does it offer the best quality anymore. There's only money left and a legion of lawyers and lobbyists. And as always, if you have the money, the law is on your side.

You may want to check out the so called "LEGO-Paragraph" in EU regulation Nr.6/2002/EU. Passage (3) comes directly from the Lego headquarters lmao 

 

Quote

Article 8

Designs dictated by their technical function and designs of interconnections

1. A Community design shall not subsist in features of appearance of a product which are solely dictated by its technical function.

2. A Community design shall not subsist in features of appearance of a product which must necessarily be reproduced in their exact form and dimensions in order to permit the product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied to be mechanically connected to or placed in, around or against another product so that either product may perform its function.

3. Notwithstanding paragraph 2, a Community design shall under the conditions set out in Articles 5 and 6 subsist in a design serving the purpose of allowing the multiple assembly or connection of mutually interchangeable products within a modular system.

 

Here is the link to LEGO's current entry in the EU transparency register, where you find all companies that are lobbying and their lobbyists who have access to European Parliament premises. I couldn't find Cobi, Bluebrixx, Kiddicraft or Lumibricks but maybe you have more luck:

https://transparency-register.europa.eu/search-register-or-update/organisation-detail_en?id=236869539281-13

 

Edited November 4, 2025 by Yperio_Bricks
punctuation

[Xfing]

I checked New Elementary and apparently the only new mould for November (not counting some minifig hats) is this: https://rebrickable.com/parts/5850/brick-arch-1-x-3-x-2-straight-end/

doesn't feel like anything revolutionary, in fact it's one more piece that feels like something obvious which might as well have been made for 40 years by now. Looks like Lego is slowly filling in their functional backlog 

[MAB]

18 minutes ago, Xfing said:

I checked New Elementary and apparently the only new mould for November (not counting some minifig hats) is this: https://rebrickable.com/parts/5850/brick-arch-1-x-3-x-2-straight-end/

doesn't feel like anything revolutionary, in fact it's one more piece that feels like something obvious which might as well have been made for 40 years by now. Looks like Lego is slowly filling in their functional backlog 

Personally, I don't think it is a bad thing. Going beyond basic 2x4 and 2x2 bricks was good, but I find the introduction of so many new parts recently a bit annoying. On one hand it is nice that they exist to create a specific design, but on the other there are now so many different but similar parts it seems unnecessary.

[Xfing]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

Personally, I don't think it is a bad thing. Going beyond basic 2x4 and 2x2 bricks was good, but I find the introduction of so many new parts recently a bit annoying. On one hand it is nice that they exist to create a specific design, but on the other there are now so many different but similar parts it seems unnecessary.

Well, since the 2003 restructuring the idea is to only add parts if they are really useful, multipurpose and justified, so as to avoid a repeat of the 80s and 90s where moulds only ever used in a single set reigned supreme (which almost brought the company under). I agree it seems like there might be some bloat recently but then again, are sets made in 2015 really that different to sets made in 2025 really? Talking about both System and Technic. I haven't seen a leap half as big in the last 15 years as say, the 5-year leap between 2002 and 1997 for Technic was.

I think the biggest revolution for the system was the 1x2 plate with rounded edges and open studs, that thing has completely revolutionized builds. At this point the only way there could be another revolution of a similar impact is if Lego finally agreed to introduce plates with studs on both sides.

Edited November 4, 2025 by Xfing

[SpacePolice89]

1 hour ago, Xfing said:

Well, since the 2003 restructuring the idea is to only add parts if they are really useful, multipurpose and justified, so as to avoid a repeat of the 80s and 90s where moulds only ever used in a single set reigned supreme

I believe this started in the mid to late 90s and was at its height in the very early 00s. The 80s and early 90s had very few specialized single use pieces and the total number of pieces back then was much lower than what it is today.

[anothergol]

18 hours ago, Xfing said:

I checked New Elementary and apparently the only new mould for November (not counting some minifig hats) is this: https://rebrickable.com/parts/5850/brick-arch-1-x-3-x-2-straight-end/

not a direct copy this time, but once again only slowly catching up with the competition:

 

18 hours ago, Xfing said:

Well, since the 2003 restructuring the idea is to only add parts if they are really useful, multipurpose and justified, so as to avoid a repeat of the 80s and 90s where moulds only ever used in a single set reigned supreme (which almost brought the company under). I agree it seems like there might be some bloat recently but then again, are sets made in 2015 really that different to sets made in 2025 really? Talking about both System and Technic. I haven't seen a leap half as big in the last 15 years as say, the 5-year leap between 2002 and 1997 for Technic was.

The only bloat comes from minifigs. Which is understandable, the minifig is pretty much LEGO's icon and they can sell the same amount of plastic for 100x the price as long as it's in minifig form or related. 

I don't much care, but what annoys me is that most (if not all) bar-sized parts that we use as "tools", were initially minifig accessories. Meaning they have little annoying details that prevent useful connections (we recently got 7052, which is generic enough, but once again, too little too late). If you've ordered minifig pistols on BL and you've received ones with the sights cut off, that's because some kid found them more useful that way & cut them off. Meanwhile, other brands simply have proper all-purpose bar parts. Straight 2L bars. Corner bars at different angles. But just bars, not minifig accessories.
On one hand, you can't "NPU" using those parts. On the other hand, they're simply useful tools. With pure LEGO the game is to find other uses for very specialized parts. With some other brands it's building something out of generic parts. Of course there's the other extreme, like Cobi & Mattel with their extremely specialized parts (except these 2 brands ALSO have good all-purpose parts). 

Edited November 5, 2025 by anothergol