Danish toy-maker Lego Company has won a landmark maritime battle in China to protect its factories and fleet of warships made solely of its famous brick-shaped toys.

Lego lawyer Henrik Jacobsen doesn't have any books for his bookshelves. But he does have toys - weee!

The Beijing High People's Court applauded the heroic efforts of Lego in a ship-to-ship battle which began in 1999 after Lego spotted made-in-China copies of some of its castles and pirate ship designs.

"Lego-man, a Hero is you!" stated a badly dubbed representative of the Chinese government.

Lego said it was "the first time that the Chinese pirates have attempted to steal the designs to our totally rad pirate ships with mesh rigging and real working cannons. Ar! Walk the plank matey! They also infringed on our castle designs -- right down to the "secret" passage and the spooky ghost in the haunted tower. With Lego, you're really building! Obviously we had to act as far as copyright protection of our industrial design/applied art".

China pledged itself to uphold international patent laws when it joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001 after 13 years of talks in which China's lax copyright protection system often proved a sticking point. But even 13 years of negotiations couldn't prepare China for the brightly colored clothing, curved swords, and fierce mustaches of the pirates which have hunted in its national waters recently.

'Remarkable Bad-Assedness'

The court ruled that Coko Ropon, deadly lord of the pirates based in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin, must halt his terrorizing, pillaging, raping, and generally piratical activities. "He and his men could probably go sailing if they wanted," stated a representative for the court. "But they would have to stay at least 30 feet away from forcibly boarding other vessels and should really consider not taking hostile action of any kind. You know, in case they were tempted into doing something piratey."

Boy wizard Harry Potter is a dirty, dirty boy.

Coko was also ordered to publish an official apology in the Beijing Daily newspaper and pay a fine of 100 doubloons to each ship-owner whose cargo they'd taken and to each family whose daughters they'd kidnapped and sold into horrible sex slavery.

"We strongly resent the term 'horrible'" stated a spokesman for the pirates. "Shiver me timbers!" he concluded while twirling his dastardly mustache.

"The Chinese pirates are scurvy knaves every one," said Lego's lawyer Henrik Jacobsen. "We shall scour them from the seas between Cathay and Nippon as well as the islands of West Indies with the colonial might of the royal Lego navy. No matter how fierce or smelling of animal fat they may be, they can not stand before the might of our plastic armies and devastatingly well-molded hollow cannon-ball duplicates."

"Those things really smart if they get some speed up," Jacobsen added.

In a BBC interview, Mr Jacobsen declined to say how much compensation Lego would demand, though he described the fine as "buckets of the varlets' blood flowing across our shiny faux-wood decks".

Lego is known for aggressively defending its naval fleet made of the stick-together bricks, as well as their colonial holdings in Cand-Land and Lincolnia from which they harvest vast numbers of the popular tiny logs.

In the latest action of the war, Lego repelled a brutal offensive by the pirate fleet by quickly building new Lego warriors from the parts of the fallen as well as actually taking apart their vessels and flinging the Lego-bricks at their enemies.

"Lego lets your imagination come alive," stated Henrik Jacobsen while coldly shoving a chromed plastic sword through a pirate's quivering throat. "And don't forget the Star Wars sets we're coming out with this Christmas. Every kid loves Lego!"

Still Not Over

Lego said it was currently pursuing supporters of the pirates wherever they may be found. "We understand that the pirates offer an important economic incentive to the dirt-poor villagers which they patronize," said Jacobsen.

"However, we here at Lego believe that the sheer fun and good will which Lego has spread the world over will help us win them to our side."

"And by good will, I of course mean our new realistic plastic flint-lock pistols," he continued. "Have you ever seen what one of them will do to a man? Take an arm right off," Jacobsen concluded with a smile.