Original ideas and designs often rank amongst a company's most prized assets. It is for this very reason that businesses in Paramus are so protective of their intellectual property. Should a competitor be allowed to use a company's designs, there may be nothing stopping them from effectively putting said company out of business using their own products by offering them to consumers at a lower price. Thus, companies will often fight to defend their ideas and designs in order to maintain their advantages in their respective markets.
A recent lawsuit filed by the Lego company confirms this. The toy brick manufacturer recently sued a British-based company for selling products it claimed to be very indistinguishable from its own. The dispute began after the rival company claimed in its advertisements that its parts (specifically, its figurine body parts) where interchangeable with those of Lego's. The company argued that Lego's copyright registrations were invalid due to the design elements in question being functionable (which seemingly flies in the face of the assumption that the function of a product cannot be protected). Yet the court hearing the case disagreed, saying that while some elements were indeed functional, the presence of those elements did not make the entire design uncopyrightable.