Protecting the LEGO Minifigure Trademark – Official Statement

Earlier this summer, LEGO announced that they will be taking measures to protect their minifigure branding on what you can and cannot do to a minifigure. LEGO legal has released an official statement regarding the practice of customizing LEGO minifigures with 3rd party logos, organization names, and trademarks.

Customized LEGO Minifigures with printed 3rd party logos, names of organizations, and trademarks are not allowed. It’s not acceptable to use of the registered Minifigure trademark in combination with 3rd party symbols. The reason for the rule is that a trademark cannot simultaneously serve as an exclusive, representative symbol of two different entities. The ability of the Minifigure to serve as a distinctive LEGO brand symbol is reduced when a Minifigure is also printed with the name, logo, symbol, or other representative indicia of another entity. Left unchallenged, such use by third-party entities could put our rights in the Minifigure at risk and could eventually result in the loss of our company’s exclusive rights. This is something that we cannot risk.

Therefore, we must request that the community refrain from printing any 3rd party logos, names of organizations, and trademarks onto LEGO Minifigures, and refrain from using, ordering, distributing or selling Minifigures in such customized versions.

We understand that the AFOL Community would still like to celebrate their community events and activities via use of customized items and are pleased to confirm that according to current corporate policy fans are free to print graphics on LEGO brick elements and custom builds made of LEGO brick elements to celebrate

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