crossmr

Actually it's not. One of the facets of trademark is that you need to defend it to prevent it from being diluted. Which is why you often see companies that go after things that someone may consider trivial or who are so picky about things like language (legos for example..) If a trademark becomes sufficiently diluted you lose a lot of legal power to enforce it. Google and Kleenex would have a hard time standing up to certain court challenges over usage of their names as generic words. Where I grew up, everything was a kleenex regardless of the brand and google is synonymous with "do an internet search" for something at this point. Trademark and design patents are what protect look and feel in this case and if Marvel (not Lego, they don't have standing on Marvel IP to sue in their stead) do nothing to protect their trademark it is relevant, because it becomes weaker and weaker to the point where they can't really enforce it.

The entire point of the article and most of the comment section is what's known on the internet as a "circlejerk" a bunch of people basically gathering around to pat each other on the back for making some ignorant comment. Yes there are much better bootlegs and fantastic clones out there too. He wanted to show off the bad ones so all the fanboys could line up to say how horrible they are and feel good about their lego purchase. As far as lego allowing this, Lego isn't in a position to stop it. They only license the content from Marvel and Disney. It's not for them to go after other companies and defends Disney's IP. They are currently fighting a battle over trademark on their minifigures. If they can't lock up the basic shape of the minifigure then they would have zero grounds to complain about this. That trademark likely isn't valid in China so they couldn't do anything there anyway. The only one that could is Disney.

The old ones were actually a 2x5. 4 studs and a stud length for hinge. Are these still 5 studs long? Thanks for the parts list, kind of tough about being here in Korea not much in the way of an individual parts market. Oxford started theirs this year, but its' only basic parts, not the entire catalogue yet. At least on bricklink I didn't see any sellers in Korea.

I assume you need some kind of pin with them as well? and I notice they're not the same size, 1 shorter right?

I needed one of these in gray. https://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=3149c01&idColor=9#T=I&C=9 I notice that it says the part was only used to 2003 in 186 different sets. I tried looking at the pick-a-brick site but couldn't seem to find this at all, or a replacement part. Do they just not use a big hinge like this in modern sets at all? What do they use instead?

The New SY is based on a mobile game, Boom Beach. I guess this ties in with Clash of Clans SY277

That street is the best place for bootlegs. They have the best prices and selection. You can sometimes get some stuff on gmarket, but the price is much higher. If you come out of exit 4 of the subway station and walk in, all the good shops are on the left, you'll see some shops that have some SY sets out front, those will usually have various bootlegs in them, and there is a shop right now that is having a massive Oxford sale. I've cleaned up there, found some really hard to find sets. If you walk down that street, part way down, before the shop that's got the giant Lego sign on it, you'll see a shop on the left that has like yellow discount stickers all over their stuff. That place has some Oxford in the front, and if you go in the back there is a shelf full of Oxford stuff. If you dig around you can find some rare stuff. Stuff you can't buy anymore. I scored a post office, bank, bus/taxi, and convenience store for my kid there. They also have a sale on the 2 in 1 change sports car which is pretty nice. Those all had good discounts. That Lego shop is like a legit shop. No under the table stuff at all. But all the other shops you can get it. There is one shop that has a bunch of Enlighten stuff out front. They have some of the new enlighten sets which are well designed but have minor clutch issues. Also if you keep walking past the Lego shop, you will see a few new shops on the left that have some bootlegs. Sometimes you seem some random bootlegs in little kids toy shops that you see around elementary schools and stuff, but their selection is pretty limited. The boot legs change often, so Every couple weeks its worth it to go up and take a walk down the street for about an hour to see what new stuff they got in. usually doesn't take much more than 45 minutes to do a run through, even with some browsing. There are about half a dozen shops that are worth looking at I find. I think this is the shop that has the Oxford right now. Or right around there. They change their stuff out front a lot.

Has anyone here ever had an issue with an SY set? I've gotten a few and never had an issue until now. I just picked up SY263 (city series) and one of the figures when I opened the box, the bag had a hole in the middle. Some parts had leaked out, but the box was sealed (and it was in a sealed bag), but the torso piece was missing. I'm going to back to the shop tomorrow, not sure if they'll do anything.

Near that area there is a toy street, which is a couple blocks long and full of little shops that sell various things. Lego is of course popular, mostly chinese and Korean lego. There is one shop that sells official lego, but no real discounts on it.

I just read that now. Best-lock is planning an appeal, and they do have trademark, not a patent on it. They could go after importers, but that would involve going after individual fans who also buy Lego products. This will be interesting.It's also my understanding that under trademark law you must defend it for it to be considered valid or else it becomes useless. It seems like Best-lock is the one who initiated this, and not the other way around. If Lego wasn't actively suing Best-lock and others who used that exact minifigure shape in their towns in the EU since being granted the trademark, it might come back to bite them. This probably explains why Oxford's minifigures are slightly different. They have rounded feet, slightly recessed legs, and a different torso connector. They might have more luck arguing the trademark has been diluted by common usage, then to argue that it's just the same as a 2x4 block. Oxford's minifigures prove that argument wrong, That aside, that ruling only helps them in the EU and not in China which wouldn't help them go after decool and the like. Which would leave any suing back on Marvel's doorstep and not Lego's. The best lego could do is get an injunction that would prevent them being imported into the EU.

That may or may not be true. Have you seen the actual license? The legal version of it? Marvel got into a lot of issues with their existing IPs (think spiderman) because of some old bad deals they made and they can't get out of now. Now that they are kicking butt in the movies, they want to do the same with spiderman but fought over it for years because they made a stupid deal long ago. Perhaps now they made a better deal with Lego. Perhaps Lego has a very limited license and maybe it's not on Lego to actually go after the Chinese company in this case. Lego's patents are expired, so I don't believe they can go after them just for making a minifigure with the same dimensions as theirs. So the only infringing part is the marvel part and perhaps lego's license to make these figures doesn't give them permission to go after people who infringe. Perhaps that right belongs to Marvel and Marvel doesn't feel like doing it for whatever reason. Any super heroes that were not on Lego's roster would be outside an agreement that did let them go after an infringer as they'd only have license to the ones they actual use. I would say it's more likely that whoever is in charge has decided that these are to be tolerated. I would guess it's not Lego's call and Marvel is behind it and they know that Asia and other countries where these are popular are big money markets for their movies. Americans generally have to pay more to import them, in other countries they're just sold on the street.

One thing I like here in Korea. There is a toy street where a few shops bring in full bunches of the SY stuff. Some sell them in sets. But a few actually break them up and sell them individually. makes it nice.

Why would anyone steal lego parts? I've lived in Korea now for 7 years, and one thing that's really nice about this place, and most of Asia, is that not everything is nailed down and protected with snipers on the roof. They really don't have problems with that kind of petty theft at all in this part of the world. It would be rude to steal things like that and even kids know better. Korea is full of "Lego Cafes" where parents can pay a certain amount per hour and the kid can go in, check out a set, get a workstation to build it and play with it. Then when their time is up, it's taken apart and put back on the shelf for the next kid. They have no issues at all.

I don't think so. At least I haven't seen one, so this has to be some really cheap unknown brand. I just picked up 172, the toy story one for my kid. Not bad. I never saw any of the original lego stuff, when that was out. I think my kid wasn't even born yet. I generally like it. The big purple guy though.. clutch could be better on him. I never was a fan of minifigs that use triangle pieces for dresses or robes. Even old lego ones I found they were never that solid. I also didn't realize woody and jessie were going to have extra long arms and legs. It's okay, but not really as nice as if they were regular size. Kind of weird actually. Out of the whole set only Buzz and the army guy are regular size minifigs.

Can you get a shot of it assembled? If we can see the whole thing someone might be able to visually match it to a brand.

it would be nice if lego produced enough to meet demand. I came into the last one late and my kid wanted a unicorn. They are going for like $20 because everyone was out feeling up bags the moment a box got opened anywhere.

I think your own hope is to knock out that back wall and build on another 5 meters.

Great job, what I would do if I had piles of extra bricks laying around!

My daughter has only one Friends set that has the new figure in it. It was one of the small animal sets. I got her a couple of the other small animal sets, that just had animals. She sort of likes the figure, but it gets played with the least. At first she seemed to like it a lot but when she realized she couldn't put them in the car, or sit them on the horse, or that kind of thing it has started sitting on the shelf while she plays with other figures. There are some interesting sets in it, we just can't get over the figures. I know it's an old complaint at this point, but really..what were they thinking? If anyone is interested, I could upload the instructions for this one: http://imgur.com/a/4z4pd my daughter loves it, and it should be more or less rebrickable in Lego. [edit]fixed link something was wrong with it

Yeah some of the buildings I've seen have not really been "playable" buildings in terms of city stuff. Like the fire set that has the burned out building, or the small shack in one of the bayou arrest scenes or that kind of thing. Creator has the 3 in 1, which I guess if you bought 3, you have 3 houses at least. The modular buildings I don't count as those aren't really fitting in price wise to the rest of the stuff. My daughter liked the Coast guard theme, which we have most of. The helicopter with the lift is her favorite, but building wise I've been supplementing with Oxford's city/Sweet line.I'd like to see Lego have some more playable affordable building stuff. Houses, service shops, and the like.

Maybe vehicles are just really easy, but do the official lines just have way too much vehicle focus? I just took a gander through the official lego site catalog and of the current city line, it's like 1 main building for the theme and then half a dozen different vehicle sets. Does lego have something against mid-size or auxiliary buildings? We can make our own, but it would be nice to have some officially designed ones to fit with existing stuff.

Bootleg/counterfeit vs clone. Two different thing. Bootleg/counterfeit is generally reserved for companies which blatantly copy Lego's look and designs. Clones are sets which using compatible bricks and are unique. Some chinese companies have copied lego and some have copied Oxford from Korea. Oxford is a quality clone. Good designs, good quality bricks. Very good value on individual sets. Chinese brands are generally cheap and horrible. There are a couple that aren't bad. Enlighten can be okay, and Star Diamond is reportedly very good. They seem to copy some old Oxford designs and possibly some old Lego designs. Beyond those, I wouldn't buy anything else for bricks. Figures Decool and SY seem fine for figures.

Can't answer the first two, but the bow is definitely big, it looks more like a long bow than a regular lego bow.

Not trying to get the Caribbean clipper and Fortress from my neighbour when he grew up. I've got a near complete set of all the early pirates run. I'm missing about 4 big sets. The clipper, the fortress, the really really big pirate boat, and one other larger late run set. Also a base I think. I have everything else except a couple of those tiny impulse plastic bag sets that might not have been around our area. I'm not sure if he still has them, but he's the kind of guy who wouldn't sell anything without looking it up and now they're worth a lot.

If you want to get Oxford sets, I believe the link in my sig is still working. You can do better than Ebay prices. Koreans who work on overseas shipping are ripoff artists. There are some who go to the states, sell stuff from amazon through a local shopping site.They take the amazon price, adding shipping, then double all of it together to get a price to sell it there. It's ridiculous. They do the same going the other way. There are reshipping companies and Gmarket itself will reship. Buy somewhat in bulk (2-3 decent sized sets at once) and your shipping will work out. This is not one of Oxford's premier lines. Other lines have better figures, military specifically, the recent town figures have all been quite good to me.