I would say not quite, simply because while Lionel and Marx both had a ‘pendulum’ style unit, the Lionel version looked very different from the marx one. Lionel’s pendulum unit was huge, and set up with contact fingers on the rocking ‘pendulum’ which would wipe across a fixed plate with contacts mounted to it.
You can see pictures of a unit I worked on here: Lionel Pendulum Reverse Unit.
Marx’s design was compact, simple, and way, way cheaper to produce than any of Lionel’s automatic reverse units. American Flyer pretty much copied Marx’s design when they developed a 2-position unit for their trains around the late 1950s.
In my experience, the Marx units do tend to become ‘sticky’ with age (getting stuck in one position, and needing a thump on the locomotive body to dislodge it). I like to take them apart and clean them out thoroughly, which usually returns them back to a state of very good reliability.
-El