Franchise · Tertiary · since 1958
LEGO
The clutch power patent is from 1958, and a brick moulded then still fits one moulded this morning. The system, the themes worth owning, the largest sets ever released, and the films, games and parks built on top of them.
The studs
Every LEGO game runs on the same four studs, and the values never changed across twenty years and thirty-five titles. Smash anything at all and they come out of it, which is the actual core loop, and the reason you end up demolishing a whole hub area for no reason.
The common one. You will collect hundreds of thousands of these and never think about a single one.
Stack every red-brick multiplier (×2, ×4, ×6, ×8, ×10) and everything above is worth ×3,840.
Why it clutches
The studs on top press against the tubes underneath and the walls between them. That single idea, patented in 1958, is the reason a brick from that year still grips one moulded this morning.
Every dimension in the system is a multiple of the same numbers, which is why a wheel, a hinge, a minifigure hand and a spaceship canopy all agree with each other sixty-seven years later.