A cubist masterpiece

Iconic and utterly distinctive, the Rubik’s Cube has both bamboozled and delighted people for over 40 years. Named for its inventor, Hungarian professor of architecture, Ernő Rubik, it was first sold as the “Hungarian Magic Cube” in 1977, the same year its first patent was granted.

That original patent has long since expired, but that didn’t stop the creators from seeking to protect its striking design. After attempting to obtain a European-wide trade mark for the shape of a Rubik’s Cube, their final appeal was quashed by the EU General Court in 2019. Such a trade mark would have been immensely valuable: since it first appeared in the 1970s, the Rubik’s Cube has been sold over 350 million times and is considered, even now, to be the world’s favourite toy. We’ve got our very own cube in the Abel + Imray offices, where the current record is an impressive 57 seconds.