lego put antoni's queer eye jacket on a minifigure, paint drips and all. thyme is on the artist's side.

via the court's ruling in Concannon v. LEGO Systems and The Fashion Law

The back of the jacket said THYME IS ON MY SIDE, hand-painted in white over the word "thyme" repeated in tiny script, because it was made for Antoni Porowski of Queer Eye, and you can guess which of the Fab Five handles the herbs. The back of the LEGO version said REBUILD THE WORLD. Same lettering. Same drips of paint running off the letters.

That detail is doing a lot of work in a 34-page ruling signed on Sunday, Sept. 27, by U.S. District Judge Omar A. Williams in Connecticut, who refused to throw out most of artist James Concannon's copyright suit against LEGO. The case, filed in December 2021, is now headed for either a settlement or a jury.

how a jacket became a minifigure

According to the ruling, Concannon made several pieces of clothing that Porowski wore on the Netflix show, and in 2018 Porowski asked him to decorate a black leather biker jacket. Concannon covered it in slogans and symbols, "BLESS THE YOUTH MANIFESTO", a yin-yang with little smiley faces, "1967 IS DEAD", a crossed-out "MONSANTO", safety pins, a skull, and the thyme pun on the back. He later registered a copyright in the design. Porowski wore it on the show, and Concannon never objected.

In 2020, LEGO licensed Queer Eye from its production company and designed a set with minifigures of all five stars. Porowski's came with a spare torso: a black leather jacket with white graffiti-style markings. The court's own finding is that LEGO initially wanted to keep "THYME IS ON MY SIDE," then, after talks with its legal department and the show, switched to "REBUILD THE WORLD," a LEGO slogan. "When the verbiage changed, the font did not, and the original drips remained through production and sale of the Set," the judge wrote.

what the ruling actually did

LEGO argued it was simply depicting Porowski's likeness, and that its lettering was "chunkier" and "more cartoony," in keeping with what it calls the "LEGO DNA." The judge found that "debatable." On likeness, he noted that Porowski wears the jacket for one episode of season four and in flashes of a second or less in three others, and wears at least three different leather jackets across those videos. "Thus, the Porowski Jacket is far from the long, glittering gown associated with Vanna White, or the spangled jumpsuit sported by Elvis Presley impersonators," he wrote. Somewhere, a federal clerk earned their salary.

The court also rejected LEGO's argument that Concannon had given Porowski an implied, unlimited license. Three copyright counts and a state unfair-trade-practices claim survive. A trade dress claim did not: the judge found no real danger a shopper would think Concannon made the LEGO set.

None of this means LEGO infringed anything. It means a jury could find that it did. The parties have until Oct. 30 to tell the court whether they are back to settlement talks or want a trial date. We already know which outcome the group chat wants.