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Lenovo sends cease-and-desist to Framework over a stylized letter “O”

 2 years ago
source link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/lenovo-gets-litigious-makes-framework-redesign-its-3d-printable-motherboard-case/
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Lenovo sends cease-and-desist to Framework over a stylized letter “O”

Company says Framework's 3D-printed motherboard case infringes its trademark.

Andrew Cunningham - 8/19/2022, 4:32 PM

The Framework Laptop motherboard's 3D-printed case design. Lenovo has a bone to pick with the circular power button design.
Enlarge / The Framework Laptop motherboard's 3D-printed case design. Lenovo has a bone to pick with the circular power button design.
Framework

If you bought the original Framework Laptop and wanted to upgrade its motherboard to the new version so you can benefit from the extra performance of a 12th-generation Core CPU, the company doesn't want you to throw your old motherboard out. To that end, Framework designed and released an open source design for a 3D-printable motherboard case, making it easy to repurpose an old Framework motherboard as a makeshift mini desktop PC.

But Lenovo has taken issue with this case design, according to a legal complaint shared via Framework's Twitter account yesterday. At issue is the design of the case's power button, pictured above, which looks like a circle or letter "O" segmented into three parts by straight lines. Lenovo's legal team thinks that circle looks like the stylized "O" in Lenovo's Legion brand logo. And they have a point, even if we don't think it's very likely that people would mix up a gaming laptop from a major PC manufacturer and a cheap 3D-printed plastic case for a niche laptop motherboard.

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The segmented letter
Enlarge / The segmented letter "O" appears in marketing materials and printed on the lids of Lenovo's Legion laptops.
Lenovo

Fortunately for Framework, the "broken O" that Lenovo is upset about doesn't appear anywhere on the Framework Laptop—it uses the company's standard gear-shaped logo on its lid and keyboard, so Framework won't need to make costly changes or dump any components it has already spent money on.

To make the problem go away, Framework is holding a design contest for a new power button design. Company CEO Nirav Patel will choose his favorite design so it can be incorporated into a new case and posted to GitHub. The contest winner will receive the Core i5-1135G7 version of the first-gen Framework Laptop motherboard—just make sure that the button design you submit doesn't look like an apple with a bite out of it, an alien head, or three snakes tied together.

Promoted Comments

  • I mean I don't disagree with the similarity, but in the case of the 3d printed design, it's as much about being a functional button that can survive being pressed repeatedly isn't it? Wouldn't that be a functional feature based on engineering and not a design feature for marketing? I mean as vented pressable plastic button I'm pretty sure there's a lot of other devices with very very similar designs.

    Then again trademark law is dumb, and since it's just changing the schematic and the resulting gcode I guess this is as good a response as any. As long as this issue doesn't escalate past this then my reaction is mostly 'Ugh, fine!"

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