hasbro sues asus over transformer prime

white88enochianwhite88enochian Regular
edited December 2011 in Spurious Generalities
It looks like the Decepticons aren’t the only foes that Optimus Prime is battling this holiday season. Hasbro, owner of the Transformers brand, is suing Asus for the name of its latest tablet, the Transformer Prime.

Hasbro filed the lawsuit last week in Los Angeles federal court, saying that the tablet’s name is too similar to its Transformers brand. It wants damages, as well as a temporary injunction on the device. The toy-maker issued a corporate-speak statement, citing its willingness to aggressively protect its brands and protect it from companies who “misappropriate” its intellectual property.

Does Hasbro have a legal leg to stand on here? Considering the Transformers are toys, cartoons, and movie characters, it isn’t likely that anyone will mistakenly think a tablet is one of them. It could be argued that customers will mistakenly think it’s a licensed Transfomers product, or Hasbro could even say that because the tablet connects to a keyboard dock it’s similar to a Transformer toy.

We’ll leave the judgment to the courts, but it isn’t exactly surprising that Hasbro would have a bone to pick here. In addition to the Transformer moniker, Prime conjures images of the Autobots’ leader, Optimus Prime. Asus must have consulted with its lawyers before going with the Transformer Prime branding, so it doesn’t appear to have believed that it would be a problem. Perhaps this is why the full name of the tablet is the convoluted Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime.

While it won’t outsell the Kindle Fire, the Transformer Prime is the most impressive Android tablet to date. It sports a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 8MP camera, optional keyboard dock, and will get Ice Cream Sandwich in January. It has started shipping in limited quantities, and will have a more widesperead rollout in January.

COMEONE NOW ITS NOT HURTING HASBRO


http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/hasbro-sues-asus-over-transformer-prime-name-20111222/

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