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

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. (credit: 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.

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.

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