https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/66150/original-lego-patent

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The Original LEGO Patent

Hannah Keyser
By Hannah Keyser
Jul 13, 2015
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US Patent number 3005282 A

, issued October 24, 1961, proposes a design for a "Toy building
brick." Today, you may know these blocks as LEGOs, produced by the
billion-dollar company that has cornered the market on savvy themed
sets.

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The description for the patent cites a Danish approval for the same
design in 1958. That was already over 25 years after LEGO had been
founded, but this particular patent, as the document states,
introduced the concept of

    ... building bricks or blocks adapted to be connected together by
    means of projections extending from the faces of the elements and
    arranged so as to engage protruding portions of an adjacent
    element when two such elements are assembled ... thus providing
    for a vast variety of combinations of the bricks for making toy
    structures of many different kinds and shapes.

The patent has since expired--opening the market to competitors--but
LEGO's brilliant interlocking design has kept them well ahead of
newer knock-offs.

[h/t Design Is Fine]

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