As always with debates on the internet nuances get lost and things get painted more black and white.
And they still deserve credit for having invented the concept and designed the bulk of the bricks.
No idea if the other comment that they stole it is true, but looking at the wealth of the owner family I’d say they got more than enough credit. They are set for many generations to come. At some point ideas have to become common good for others to also build upon.
bus_factor@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Someone did invent stackable blocks with four round pegs on them, but saying Lego stole the entire concept is like saying whoever invented the wheel stole the concept because they didn’t invent the circle. You have to allow for iterative design to some extent.
To your second point, you are right that they have got “enough credit”, considering that the patent is expired. This is how patents work: In exchange for sharing your idea with the world so it can be iterated upon, you get to keep exclusive rights to use it (which you can optionally license to others) for a limited time. So the patents expiring is literally the system saying they got their due.
That being said, they still can get brownie points in public opinion for coming up with all this, and the competition has done very little iteration on the concept as far as I can tell, beyond making cool designs with existing brick designs. But considering that the competition so far has mostly been playing catch-up, this may change. Also, considering the vastness and versatility of existing brick designs, there wasn’t much to iterate upon, so maybe set design is really where we’re going to see most of the movement.
It’s basically down to “name brand vs generics” now with the patent expired, and some people will prefer name brand stuff.