Quote: "Well, we thought we would do everyone's favor childhood toy. Brick men!"
Brick Men???
As Alt Shule or Yoda might say.."My favorite it was not."
Quote: "the issue seems to be that no one knows for sure whether this does infringe upon a copyright "
No one knows? hmmm
I am sure that this is a copyright infringement if done for profit.
Why do you think that the Honda Rebel 450 was only made two years?
Because Harley-Davidson sued them for stealing their design of the Sportster.
I guess you can figure out by Honda's discontinuation of the motorcylce that Harley-Davidson won the battle.
Yes the Honda Rebel 250 still exists, but only because the engine is not a v-twin. (all Harley's have v-twin engines)
So, if you modify the design enough then you can get away with it, because it is then clearly not a direct copy but a new creation.
Maybe you could make the hands have two fingers on one side, instead of it being a solid piece.
Lego people hands have are made like the ones you show here, so making a minor detail into something not found on Lego's may be enough, but it's all up to the judge in the end.
I would definitely get rid of the connector ridge on the head, because all Lego people heads have them and that makes them look like Legos.
That is just me though, so you guys express your own creativity, because I am not trying to tell you what to do.
Here is something interesting that I found at Wikipedia...
Quote: "
The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called Lego. It expanded to producing plastic toys in 1940. In 1949, Lego began producing the now famous interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based largely on the design of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which were released in the United Kingdom in 1947. Lego modified the design of the Kiddiecraft brick after examining a sample given to it by a British supplier of an injection-moulding machine that Lego had purchased. The first Lego bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another; but these plastic bricks could be locked together. They had several round studs on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. The blocks snapped together, but not so tightly that they required extraordinary effort to be separated.
"
See, even the Lego bricks were modified from another design so I am certain that with a few changes, your Brick Men would have a good chance of winning in court.
I am not trying to debate this or sound like a stiff neck or anything.
I am trying to help you avoid a potential sticky situation.
This idea is a good one and one that I considered in the past myself, but I did not want to get into the licensing/copyright issues.
Good luck, and I wish you guys the best.
