The Lenovo legal team says we have to change the power button on our 3D printed case, so we’re opening up a Community contest! Whoever can come up with the best new power button design gets a free i5-1135G7 Mainboard.
Entries will be judged subjectively by our CEO. Contest closes on August 25th at 11:59pm PST. Winner will be announced on August 26th.
Something like this? Sorry for the crude drawing.
I might draft a better version in my CAD software.
How can we check a new design does not violate for trademark or patent in advance to avoid this kind of issue?
I believe the easiest way to go around this issue would be to take your logo and replace the existing “offending” one (seriously, Lenovo?).
So, after a quick Paint session with your logo image, I came up with this:
Good luck everyone!
Out of PURE spite, make it the “e” from the Lenovo logo but slightly different.
Made this in like 2 minutes, please don’t judge.
Related tweet and other suggested designs by people:
This is a mock up of a new design that combines elements of the Framework Logo, Power button logo, broken circle, and broken hexagon.
Hope y’all enjoy
Another mockup but it’s more simple.
Hi, here is my submission:
Related articles by media.
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This infuriates me, because that design is purely mechanical and functional, and should be too simple to be trademarkable unless it was incorporated into the rest of the word LEGION or something.
It’s not even a design, but simply a functional mechanical minimalism like a fan grill.
I understand that in the real world it’s not worth the million dollars to try to prove that Lenovo are wrong. It’s just, they ARE wrong and should not get to get away with abusing anyone smaller than them simply because they are smaller than them.
Equinox serial console server from the early 90’s, or maybe even 80’s. Says Avocent but Avocent merely bought Equinox way back in 2000, and this particular model was already many years old by then. This thing is old as the hills. Surely long before this trademark…
Just one example of something so dumb it should not require an actual example, but fine, here is one anyway just because I happen to be familiar with it.
It’s clear from looking at the Lenovo and the one on the framework case that they are very similar nearly identical. A company enforcing a trademark is not abusive at all. In fact if they don’t enforce the trademark they could actually lose it. So this is not abusive this is simply the way lawyers communicate in letters in fact it seemed quite tame of a letter. Framework just needs to change the logo so it doesn’t replicate someone else’s and be done with it Case closed.
Not sure what it’s like in the US, but here in Canada, there’s this:
Also, I’m not sure if a trademark can be sliced and diced into ‘sections’. Next, you’ll hear Lenovo claiming the L,E,G,I,N are theirs…individually. i.e. Aren’t “trademark” treated as singular item, as a whole?
Good move on Framework in turning this into a community engagement exercise, and getting some positive spin on this.
It’s not a fight worth fighting at the point…it’s a trap.
Imagine if Yahoo! claims the “!” as theirs:
Historically, think there’s been trademark infringement cases around the “M” in the McD’s logo. In those cases, the “M” wasn’t a functional part. Also, to prove infringement, one would need to provide evidence of confusion. Good luck trying to prove that with the Framework 3D printed mainboard case.
Lawyers just trying to fill the billable hours quota.
Or, “Reject an attempt to claim ownership of something too basic and common to be owned by anyone. Case closed.”
Anyone can blurt an opinion and say “case closed”, and it means nothing and the case in fact remains open for debate.
Besides which, there is no logo to change, since that is a functional part not a logo.
There is no valid reason to defend Lenovo’s lawyers on this. There is a valid reason to roll over and let them have their way, but the reason is only the ultimate unimportance of the part and the plain might of any large company, not because it’s even 1% legitimate.
A modest product needs a simple logo. This design incorporates the classic power button pictogram with a red LED in the centre to display the power state:
I am not really an artist, so I just sketched my design in freecad.
Importing the STP didnt work completly (dont know what went wrong, but it exports and looks ok in the slicer)
Because Lenovo is beholden to the dehumanizing CCP, which has a long list of anti-human activities to atone for… Because Lenovo has been caught putting keylogging chips in laptops, which is devious and evil… Because Lenovo is a soulless corporation without ethics or remorse… How about if the case design uses the following Renaissance painting by Da Vinci as a humanistic inspiration:
Touch the area where the finger tips join to power on the machine.
Or… touch one finger tip to power up the computer normally and the other to start up into the BIOS.
Just had a look on Lenovo’s site. It’s just a trademark…not even registered trademark. They don’t own it, currently. (That’s my understanding) So, I’m not sure how they can claim “Lenovo is the owner of the LEGION trademarks” is a true statement. Can you own something that you have not been registered with?
Without it being registered…I’m not sure what Lenovo’s lawyers think they can do (reference) e.g. What legal rights does Lenovo have towards the “broken O”?:
Consider the disclaimer at the top of that page.
“Because of the large number of products marketed by Lenovo and the fast-changing nature of our business, it is difficult to ensure that this list is always up to date. Lenovo will endeavor to maintain this list and to include, at a minimum, its most important trademarks, but cannot guarantee that all current marks are included.”
A better source would be the US trademark office
Edit: I seriously doubt that Lenovo feels threatened by Framework but I think Lenovo has a legal obligation to defend it’s trademark. Yeah, looking through some law school pages on trademark law, my interpretation is that Lenovo might feel the need to fight over this to head off any possible argument that they “abandoned” their mark.
