Group. The trademark applies to LEGO product line with dedicated Lego Serious Play kits. Initially in 2001, the subsidiary of LEGO Company called Executive Discovery submitted the application to patent the methodology and the material product line. Later in 2006 Executive Discovery re-submitted the patent application. However, U.S. patent office never issued the official patent because by 2008 the application was abandoned by the applicant. Therefore, LEGO Serious Play methodology was never patent protected. In 2010, the LEGO group made the methodology open source, releasing the LEGO Serious Play methodology under a Creative Commons community-based licence. The main LEGO Serious Play communities are: Association of Master Trainers, LSPConnect, Serious Play Pro, Global Federation of LSP Master Trainers. In 2019, Playmobil released their competing material product Playmobil Pro that uses a similar set of plastic figurines and toys for story telling. The research effort In 2000, the systematic research effort on LEGO Serious Play methodology focusing on the idea of playing seriously in organizations first started at the Swiss-based think tank Imagination Lab Foundation. The Imagination Lab's main task was researching the use of the method for strategy development in organizations. Their team of researchers wrote 3 books, 74 working and research papers, and 12 short articles. Imagination Lab ceased to exist in 2004 and created European Academy of Management iLab Foundation Award. Since 2004, David Gauntlett published a number of books on combination of LEGO Serious Play in media studies. This approach makes use of metaphor and invites participants to build metaphorical models of their identities. The process of making something, and then reflecting upon it, is claimed to give a more nuanced insight into participants' feelings or experiences. Since 2007, Louise Møller Haase (née Louise Møller Nielsen) from Aalborg University published her dissertation, subsequent books and articles on personal- and shared experiential concepts and product development and prototyping approaches focusing on LEGO Serious Play research projects at TC Electronic, The Red Cross, Daimler AG, and Copenhagen Living Lab. In 2009, the LEGO Serious Play method was further developed for use in schools. Teachers are trained to use it with students from six years old. The method has also been adapted for use in higher education as a tool for teaching and learning, research, and ideation (Nolan 2009). Subsequently, IJMAR has published a special issue on Lego Serious Play applications. By 2011, Loizos Heracleous from Warwick Business School and Claus