It is interesting to see articles about how to protect your 6 years old product - being on the noble mission of training next generation of engineers - when you played with this kind of toy ca. 35 years ago.
Probably the fact that it was sold out in days of launch may - at least partially - be attributed to the fact that parents knew this kind of toy quite a bit already by heart...
...and of course due to the fact that this idea is well tested by time already.
The knock-offs he shows in the article don't just copy the flake form-factor though; they are blatant copies of the models and the marketing material. It's not just making a composable brick set; it's copying a Lego model piece by piece.
