COBI S.A., simply known as Cobi, is a Polish manufacturer of children's toys, specializing in building block sets that are compatible with major brands such as Lego.
COBI S.A. was founded in 1987 by Polish entrepreneur Robert Podleà  as a seller of board games, puzzles and imported arcade games. It later began importing toys from American markets to be sold in Poland. In 1992, Cobi began to produce its first building block sets that followed the pattern and structural design of Lego products. Cobi opened a new office, headquarters and a major production plant for their building block sets in Mielec in 1996. In 2006, Cobi merged with American company Best-Lock which allowed them to distribute their products to worldwide markets, starting with America.
Between 1990âÂÂ2001, Cobi entered into constant disputes with The Lego Group with the latter accusing the former of plagiarism. The Lego Group eventually filed a lawsuit against Cobi, but the lawsuit was dismissed after it was found out that the patent for traditional Lego blocks (not including unique sculpted blocks or minifigures) had expired in 1978. Lego, however, remained a competitor brand of Cobi.
Cobi mainly specializes in building blocks that are compatible with all major brands like Lego and Mega Bloks. Their most popular range of products are brick-built models of military vehicles and equipment from ancient to modern and contemporary times. Cobi has stated that their models are not intended to glorify war and violence, but are only for collectors and history enthusiasts, with a similar aim to traditional model kits. Due to the popularity of these models, certain sets have been sold exclusively in the gift shop of the Bovington Tank Museum. Some models have also been produced in collaboration with video games such as Company of Heroes 3 and World of Tanks.
Cobi has also produced sets that are not based on military vehicles and equipment. They have released building block sets of licensed cars from brands such as Volkswagen. Cobi has also released a product line called "Action Town" which is aimed at younger children, featuring simplistic builds with a city theme.
As a running joke, Cobi often produces new building block sets of the Tiger I heavy tank and associated variants of it, such as the Tiger 131.
Cobi's biggest competitor is Lego, the original brand behind the trend of building block sets. A major difference between Cobi and Lego is that the latter refrains from producing sets with military themes to avoid glorification of war. Minor loopholes and exceptions have been made for this rule, however, with the Lego Indiana Jones sets occasionally featuring Wehrmacht soldiers and the Sopwith Camel set that was released in 2012. Aside from Lego, Cobi is also a competitor of Quanguan, a Chinese company that specializes in military themed building block sets. Some of Quanguan's designs have been plagiarized from Cobi, such as their model of the TOG2 heavy tank and engineering on their model of the Panzer IV. Quanguan has since moved on from knockoffs and has been producing original sets.