Comments on: How to Spot a Pirate

By: Bees

Bees — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:12:25 +0000

Does anyone know the address of where Enlighten is manufactured, by any chance?

By: Sherry

Sherry — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 05:56:20 +0000

I don’t know about the legality issue, but I can say that the Enlighten Bricks are just great! I just bought 2 sets for my son, the army barracks set and the jeep, and both are of high quality. I was very impressed by them, and intend to buy more. I also got a tank made by Sluban to go with these, but it is quite inferior in quality: blocks don’t stick together so well, sort of like the Mega Blocks. If anyone is interested, these sets are readily available on eBay. True, the shipping is as much or more than the product, but still the total is the same or less than buying a Lego set in the US. So if I can get the same quality for less, of course I’m going to buy it. I don’t really care whose name is on the box.

By: larry marak

larry marak — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:00:18 +0000

My experience with Enlighten is that usually one element in the build needs to be replaced with a Lego counterpart to complete the build. Their military designs are high quality, and Enlighten is now copied by Kazi, Little White Dragon, Ligao, and several other PRC cloners (Enlighten is Hong Kong, separate jurisdiction). They produce a number of unique and useful elements and don’t use stickers, so at this point some of their products are superior to Lego in quality (Lego is downgrading to stickers). They do produce a lot of copies of Lego, mega block, and Bandai sets.

By: Karl

Karl — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:57:44 +0000

interestingly enough almost all of the “Sluban” kits, including the ones pictured above by Legodude are not LEGO pirates, but pirated copies of “Oxford” brand toys. Oxford is a Korean company that, while it is clearly influenced by LEGO and is LEGO compatible, has an extensive line of it’s own designs, and it’s own style of minifigs. Their sets are all unique from LEGO, and with the exception of some possible Harry Potter knockoffs, they don’t have any real trademark violations.

Oxford kits are not available in the U.S., but companies such as Bestlock, and others (who probably get their products through Sluban) market knockoffs of Oxford products. It’s almost like seeing a company pirate MegaBlox kits.

As for Enlighten, almost all their products (except for thier military line, and certain other sets) are pirated LEGO Clones that defy any reasonable interpretation of international copyright laws.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:55:41 +0000

Yeah, I heard about it too. Apparently lego had a lawsuit and the company won by default because the defendant failed to show up. I guess it looks bad to show up to defend for a “pirated” product. Imagine the media having a field day and will definitely bring the reputation down a notch.
But seriously…are the Enlighten Bricks really that bad as claimed to be?

By: Tommy Lee

Tommy Lee — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:26:55 +0000

I heard somewhere that more than 54,000 Enlighten products were destroyed.It could harm children with its poor quality of plastic.

By: Enlighten

Enlighten — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:07:39 +0000

I don’t think enlighten bricks are illegal. I own quite a lot of sets and many others do. The enlighten bricks are value for money, cheap, durable, make with good plastics and its accessible for both rich and poor students. Enlighten bricks is totally different product and target segments as compared with Lego. Customers are going for value. If Enlighten bricks cannot provide such value, then I don’t think so many people around the world are collecting it, including me. It is totally legal in China and many other countries as well, only certain countries try to make “Enlighten bricks” illegal. In some way, Enlighten bricks are creating its own design, pattern, and even the face structure.

By: Dunechaser

Dunechaser — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 04:01:33 +0000

From the footer on LEGO.com:

“LEGO, the LEGO logo…the Brick and Knob configurations, and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group.”

By: Armothe

Armothe — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 03:39:10 +0000

Actually, the LEGO minifig is not trademarked and never was. It was, however; at one point patented which has long since run out. Each LEGO accessory and brick has its own patent as well. As for the sets themselves they have a copyright (which only extends so far).

Cloning an exact set is pretty shady but several companies have already been producing their own similar minifigs for awhile now.

By: John

John — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:13:32 +0000

For some reason, I was thinking China wasn’t part of WIPO =)

Probably their rampant piracy =)

By: Roys

Roys — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:18:35 +0000

Hi, Dunechaser, thanks for the correction. I guess we all learn something new everyday :)

By: legodude

legodude — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:59:28 +0000

Another brand, Sluban, was sold in a normal Chinese mall in Suzhou. I took a picture of one of the shelves.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasta/548338182/

In other stores in China I saw some more brands, some more expensive then others. From military gear to Formula 1, they had it all.

By: Gambort

Gambort — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:06:38 +0000

Actually, I’m pretty sure these are illegal in China too. China are WIPO members and must respect international copyright treaties. Enforcement of the law is an entirely different matter. As an interesting historical note the wholesale breach of IP laws has a precedent: the USA in the late 19th century copied European IP at a large scale which helped kickstart its domestic IP industry.

By: Dunechaser

Dunechaser — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:05:29 +0000

Roys: Nope, that’s a musket, not a rifle. ;-)

By: Roys

Roys — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:26:06 +0000

I think they had brown rifles w/o the protruding part behind the trigger cos I found similar ones in my Forbidden Island set.