Hasbro Sues Asus For Naming Tablet "Transformer Prime"
Hasbro Sues Asus For Naming Tablet "Transformer Prime"
Posted 12/22/2011 at 11:33am
| by Brad Chacos
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If Optimus Prime (of Transformers fame) were real, he’d probably just smash any puny tablet that tried passing itself off as the leader of the Autobots. But – disappointingly – Optimus Prime isn’t real, so it’s up to Hasbro to defend against gadgets trying to besmirch his honor. The company apparently takes its responsibility seriously, because it recently filed a lawsuit against Asus claiming that the Eee Pad Transformer Prime violates a number of Hasbro trademarks. Sigh… Real life is so boring compared to giant fighting robots.
The lawsuit was filed in L.A. last week. Hasbro wants to be paid for damages and is seeking a temporary sales ban for the Asus tablet, so that kids stop confusing tablets with keyboards for giant shiv-wielding robots trying to protect the world against the Decepticons. The Verge took a look at the court filing and notes that one of the trademarks cited is a pending one for “Transformers Prime,” but it only applies to toys, board games and cartoons.
“Hasbro continues to aggressively protect its brands and products and the specific actions we are taking today against Asus underscores yet again Hasbro’s willingness to pursue companies who misappropriate our intellectual property for their own financial gain,” the company told PaidContent.org. Asus has yet to comment publicly.
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neoxalucard
December 23, 2011 at 1:19pm
On a semi related subject... This reminds me of Paris Hilton trying to copyright the phrase "Thats Hot" or Trump with "You're fired"... Why dose every one think that if they put two words together, they then have exclusive too their use. But anyway.
I think the problem here is "Optimus Prime" and "The Trasnformers" are TM, but just because Hasbro has trademarked the two dosen't mean they own the rights to each indivual word or any combination of said words.
EDIT: Forgot about the "Transformers: Prime" show... Still, frivolous.
IFLATLINEI
December 23, 2011 at 7:45am
I'm thinking Asus knew this would happen when they named it. They wanted to be sued. This is how pathetic these companies have become. This all just reaks of some idiot executives brilliant marketing scheme. Nice job but outside of the Nook Color and maybe the new Nook Tablet there isn't anything else worth buying.
Gezzer
December 22, 2011 at 11:22pm
Juat a slightly off topic question.
Is there an award show for litigation? If not there should be. I can see some of the categories now.
1. Company with the most pending patent disputes...... that isn't Apple.
2. Company with the flimsiest premise for a trademark dispute. Toss up between Hasbro and Bethesda.
3. Most outlandish reward per song for a copyright infringement case against a regular citizen.
Hey they could even broadcast it on SpikeTV. But if they do I'm suing their @sses off. It was my idea after all.
kevjohn
December 22, 2011 at 5:16pm
The most damaging thing to Hasbro's Transformers brand is those god-awful movies.
titan8813
December 22, 2011 at 4:08pm
Pretty sure they have to prove "damages" which would require proof that someone was going to buy a Hasbro toy called Transformer or Prime, and instead bought an ASUS Android tablet, thus losing the sale for Hasbro. Good luck with that ;-)
richeemxx
December 22, 2011 at 1:38pm
I don't see this going any where. The "Transformer" trademark Hasbro has only relates to toys and games and such and does not relate to pcs, tablets ect. It would be like Hasbro coming back out with their old school happy apple toy and Apple suing them infringement. Its just not going to fly.
stradric
December 22, 2011 at 12:19pm
You know ASUS was trying to bite off of the Transformers by calling it Prime. Unfortunately for Hasbro, I don't think they have a case. It's a shit business move trying to fight it if you ask me. Instead, they should be working with ASUS to release the Optimus Prime-skinned version of the Transformer Prime.
Peanut Fox
December 22, 2011 at 12:43pm
If it had nVidia's Optimus GPU switching technology, they could could have called it the Transformer Optimus Prime :)
Markkus Rovito
December 22, 2011 at 12:40pm
Good call. Collaboration over competition. Don't know who'd pay $500 for an Optimus Prime tablet, but there's one way to find out.
jnite
December 22, 2011 at 2:41pm
Agreed. If it only had the word Transformer, or only Prime, I would understand. But put the two words in the same sentence, much less the same name, and it should have been obvious this was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
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