You may heard or seen pictures of a Chinese company called Lepin reproducing bootleg copies of various LEGO sets and selling them on the market for a fraction of the normal retail price. People who aren’t LEGO enthusiasts may not immediate know the difference between the Lepin clones and LEGO as they have similar logo fonts and packaging but us fans know it very well.
There’s news coming out of the LEGO Ambassador Network earlier this morning that The LEGO Group has filed civil actions in China against Lepin and the cases have been accepted in Chinese courts. Whether or not TLG will win these cases remain to be seen. You can check out the whole post below.
Dear RLUG Ambassadors,
We would like to confirm that the LEGO Group have recently filed civil actions in China against the manufacturer and distributor of LEPIN/乐拼 branded construction toys. Our cases have been accepted by Chinese courts and are now pending for trials. We expect the 1st instance decision to be handed down in approximately one years’ time. Please note that LEPIN will not be legally barred from marketing and selling its products while the case is being heard by the courts.
We deeply appreciate and share the LEGO community’s concern and frustration about passing-off or imitation of LEGO® products. We are committed to do whatever necessary to protect the LEGO brand and products against undue exploitation, and to minimize the risk of consumers being misled via improper use of LEGO Group intellectual property assets.
We want to thank all of you for your loyalty and support. Please feel free to share this message.
On behalf of the LEGO Group,
LCE
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I hope Lego wins! If they win, they might get a settlement of money! With more money, they can produce more or better Lego sets!
…that’s how it works, right?
Well they use money to make more lego pieces, which can either be put to make more of a stock on lego sets or add pieces to lego sets to make them more detailed so I guess it would be good
Although the extra money would be great, that isn’t the issue here. The issue is that another company is selling direct knock offs of Lego. It’s unbelievable. Lego had better win these court trials.
Funniest and most naive I have read in a long time. They won’t win and even if they did they won’t get a cent from Lepin.
TLG Win or Not,i Think Result not Different.
But the evil chinese dont care about any laws or anything, what can Lego do? They have been making fake legos forever, why go after them now? And who said Lego would use the money so we get better sets?
if people are buying that garbage, there is clearly a market, come on lego, UCS Falcon 2
I want the Falcon re-realease so bad, I regret having not bought it back then. I of course won’t get the Lepin copy because – quality!
And I am not speaking just about quality of the look and feel but also on a chemical level – clean and long lasting ABS. Last thing I want, is a set that totally degases, deforms and looses color after a few years.
Bring it on LEGO, get us the re-release, no matter wheter it is the classic or the TFA Falcon
from what i hear quality is 100% because they are using materials and tecniques from the Lego factory in China.
I hope that, seeing the popularity of Lepin’s versions of heavily in-demand and popular retired sets, Lego puts some kind of system in place to allow for more re-releases. Why should re-releases be limited to the Death Star and Winter Village Toy Shop? With increased production capabilities, perhaps Lego could produce a “Fan’s Choice” line of re-releases, including the earlier Modulars, Monster Fighter’s Haunted House, etc.
They already tried direct rereleases with the Legends line. It bombed. The Death Star isn’t a re-release, since it involves substantially different construction and updated minifigs. The WV Toy Shop was pretty much cribbed from the first with a few minor changes, and the public threw a fit over that set. They fielded a lot of calls about how family traditions of building the new WV set each year had been ruined.
Ironically, when the UCS MF came out, all you’d ever hear about it was that it was a really cool model but way too expensive. Now that even used copies sell for upwards of 4x the MSRP, all you hear is how everyone wishes they’d bought a copy back when it was new. If the Lepin version is indeed selling for $150, that’s tapping into a market that even the discounted presales ($400 vs $500) couldn’t really touch, and even if they were to break from standard practice and just shove the 10179 design back onto the market, these knock-offs would _still_ sell better because they’re less than 1/3 the cost of one of the most expensive LEGO sets ever made.
There will come a day when they’ll probably make a new UCS MF, but don’t ever expect to see a straight reissue of 10179. The sales just aren’t there to justify it. A literal handful of aftermarket sales of the original at heavily inflated prices don’t count. People buying underpriced knock-offs for less than $0.03/pc don’t count when the real thing is just shy of $0.10/pc.
took them long enough
Not surprise lately Lepin Focus newest set than rarely set or set that Lego stop making.
Lego will loose this court case, just like Apple loosing a case in china against a copied phone. just like sport brands loosing cases.
The lego bootleg market right non for the most part are aimed at poorer people and places where lego cost double or 3 times more than the USA retail prices.
Lego is already quite expensive for a lot of people so when the price is doubled. People will just but the bootleg.
I collect superheroes lego for the most part, but I also review a lot of the bootleg stuff on my youtube (digger318 toy reviews).
I personally keep figures NOT produced by lego. Most recently Suicide Squad movie based figures, Stan Lee, captain hydra etc.
I do have to note that sometimes the bootlegs are actually produced better than lego. There are army figures that have printing on the front, back and side (even torso side print), diecast weapons, figures that actually use enough white paint so the print doesn’t look faded on dark plastic.
all for the price of less than 1 USD a figure with parts.
I often do question lego products now, what happened to the white paint? What happened to their main audience as kids when they do things like Mr. Gold (blind bags in general suck) or exclusive SDCC figures?
you are digger318 ?
yup
The Invisible woman and human torch are exceptionally good minifigures that would be troublesome to legally produce. The Blind bags are a particularly offensive and expensive practice especially from a child’s pocket money point of view.
Mr. Gold and SDCC figures: How has Lego turned their backs on children because of these offers? They are special items. Kids and their parents can still go into any store with a toy aisle with hundreds of Lego sets to choose from.
Lego has always said their main audience are children. Tell me, how many children get to go to comic cons? How many children around the world?
Even if you get there, what are the chances of getting one? Lego knows that most people who go and get one are scalpers who sell them for a high price on ebay.
All lego would have to do is say, hey, it is a timed exclusive and we will be selling them later.
as for Mr. Gold, tell me, who do blind bags really benifit? you walk in, you buy a bag and you have no idea what you are getting. same goes with trading card games. In the past you sort of had the excuse of saying hey its fun to trade with friends.
These days?
People want a full set, people want to know what they are getting, and if some figures are more rare, how can anyone get a full set.
Let’s be real, the only benefit is making people spend more money, keep buying until u have a full set. keep buying repeating figures you already got.
Lego is not making anyone spend more money on anything. It’s the consumer’s choice. That’s how the free market works. Don’t like it? Don’t buy the blind bags.
As for convention exclusives, you seem to have the idea that children are somehow injured by being deprived of these minifigs. Lego says their main concern is children. A handful of convention exclusives does not negate the hundreds upon hundreds of readily available children-oriented sets at retail. No one is entitled to a chance to own every piece of merchandise that Lego produces. Children are not hurt because that can’t have a Mr. Gold.
The only thing Lego owes you is a good product for the price paid.
you know I wouldn’t have a problem if lego was honest and just said, we are about the money.
it’s the fact that they said their main audience is children and always children when exclusives are clearly not.
besides, lego printing is not up to par anymore since they moved factories to china.
They didn’t move factories to China, they are opening new factories in China.
Love the reviews you do, and yes I feel also the marketing team behind lego has got way to greedy, so much about collectible lego now is dominated by “lego investors/speculators” I hope the knock off market burn them hugely by either a reducing demand for retired sets or flight in a fire under Legos backside and pushing them away for supporting the lego investors and sharks. Heck the comic con sets are crazy, I don’t live in the USA, so will never have a chance to get one myself. I had a friend over the the states try for me. People are hanging around the lies buying tickets and sets off people to resell on eBay, more sharks than fans in the lines now : ( wake up lego
exactly! I buy real lego but F the SDCC stuff, I, like most people cannot afford to spend that much money buy 1 off ebay.
I also cannot afford to buy a plane ticket, fly to SD or NYC just for a chance for getting a figure.
so spending about a buck for a equal quality figure is good enough.
I think Lego already knows that this case will be dismissed by the Chinese courts, as they have known all these years. So many legit patent and copyright cases have been thrown out of Chinese courts. So why now, why this particular company? Some higher ups at Disney noticed, maybe, and they decided to make an example out of Lepin, a former Lego factory executive in China turned renegade and decided to use trade secrets they learned from Lego and opened up his own-Lepun, in this case. This sounds personal.
I live LEGO but also like LEPIN….it’s good quality and cheap….if LEGO reduced the cost of products and made what people want then I wouldn’t need to buy LEPIN products. I’ve been after the Taj Mahal for ages and simply can’t afford to buy used products at 3k plus so when you see it for $149 then what are you going to do. Keep up the good work LEPIN
You’re the reason we can’t have nice things.
Lepin has not been in the market long enough to hurt Lego sales. They are mostly selling sets to countries who only the wealthy can afford to buy genuine Lego. All power to Lepin and I will buy all their sets even though I have the original Lego ones.
You know lego is a company turning over 5billion a year? They are not your friends or best buddy’s, but there marketing team has sure done a number on you
What is that supposed to mean?
That does not follow at all.
What a load of crock. In case you haven’t noticed, like many AFOLs have and even Youtube reviewers have recognized it, LEGO bricks have been seriously losing quality. Take a new brick and rub the corner against another corner of another new brick. Many of the green tree leaves, several varieties, break easily. Not to mention many smaller pieces cracking for no reason. Some bricks can even be scratched with your fingernail. Once the Chinese factory is finalized I guarantee you the quality of bricks will suffer and TLC will still sell at a high price. Then we will be buying the “name” and “what it once was,” like an Ivy League school education nowadays.
yea, yellowed white pieces, using less white paint on figures. (face colour looks dark or colours not matching due to it being darker)
Would I buy a LEGO UCS Millenium Falcon? Yes
Would I buy a Lepin knock off? I’m seriously considering it; the only thing holding me back is a worry about the vendor and actually getting what I pay for.
Would I buy a LEGO UCS Millenium Falcon if I’d already bought a Lepin knock off? Yes
If LEGO were to announced a UCS Millenium Falcon in the very near future, would I buy a Lepin knock off? No, of course not.
…
I would suggest that this is a train of thought several prospective LEGO UCS Millenium Falcon buyers are going through.
good job opening up a Lego factory in china so that the masters could put a few more coins in their billion kroner accounts. now Lepin is using LEGO tech and LEGO materials to make bricks that are essentially 99.9% lego (minus the logo on the studs).
I haven’t bought a Lepin set, probably never will, but every time I see a 100$ green grocer on ebay i grind my teeth just a little.
Lets all start suing each other because we all implement the action of walking in order to make money. Look around you, what do you own that comes from china? and do you honestly believe that the lego company is not using some poor Chinese slave to hoard his riches? or are you going to keep ignorantly eating your happy meals receiving your free Chinese toy while your child screams at TOYS R US because he was denied the latest star wars toy?
Squishy Lego lovers who cry over corrupt companies. We are not so stupid to believe that LEGO is LEPIN and neither are we so stupid to believe that LEPIN has violated the rights of LEGO.
I have no doubt that LEGO would be more than happy to plagiarize LEPIN if it had the monopoly but sadly all I can hear is crying peasants who pray for their sacred lego company.