Best-Lock
Best-Lock Construction Toys is a brand of plastic building bricks that are compatible with Lego. Best-Lock Group Limited, which manufacture the bricks, is based in Colne, Lancashire, England.
History
Best-Lock was founded in 1997 by Torsten Geller after he looked into the legalities of Lego and other clones.Best-Lock has been involved with multiple legal cases involving Lego. The company moved in 1998 against Lego's exclusivity claims to toy-block design. Best-Lock won the case, thus allowing them to sell sets in Germany. They defeated a patent challenge from Lego in 2004. In a further case in 2009, Lego was denied trademark protection for the shape of its bricks.
Best-Lock merged with Cobi, a Polish building block manufacturer in 2006. The merger has since yielded co-branded building block toys.
In 2000, Lego filed a three-dimensional trademark for its mini-figures, which Best Lock had duplicated since 1998. In 2012, Best-Lock sued to have the trademark revoked, but the European Court of Justice upheld Lego's figure trademark.