The Energon Pub

UltraPrimal wrote:

kirbenvost wrote:

Kibble wrote:I wonder if the Transformer Prime laptop line is the same as Hasbro's where the super limited initial run is good, but the ones they release to the masses are crappy?

lol... I was actually kind of rooting for Hasbro on this one. Maybe not right to ban sales, but to force a name change seems reasonable to me. "Transformer Prime" is just too blatantly similar. But whatever, makes no difference to us at the end of the day.

I agree. I was with Hasbro on this one. Though maybe the 2 companies should have just gotten together and released an official Transformers branded laptop/tablet thing. I'm currently in the market for a new laptop/tablet and I was actually looking at getting an ASUS Transformer Prime, simply because of the name.

Same here, actually. Besides, Asus has Lamborghini branded ones, and ones with various artists/actors, so this wouldn't be a stretch for them.

Sorry if I'm rehashing old matters here, but I'm just getting caught up on this thread after being insanely busy with a new job for the last few weeks.

As to the comment above questioning why people even care, and about the lame wannabe lawyers:
I care, because I find intellectual property law interesting, and because I have a love for the Transformers brand, and because I AM a wannabe lawyer (I'm currently in law school, despite being old enough to have been a kid when Transformers originally came out, which is another reason why I've been so busy and am just catching up on this thread now).

As to suing over something seemingly insignificant, and the comment about Amazon Prime:
They HAVE to sue to defend their copyright. As correctly stated above, if they don't, then they risk allowing it to essentially be a public domain word or phrase, and then lose ownership of it. The wouldn't bother with Amazon Prime, because they don't own either word. However, as they have various copyrights related to phrases starting with "Transformers" and ones ended with "Prime," they legally have to make an issue out of such a similar combination of words.

It's been a while since I read this judge's ruling, so maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this was a ruling on the merits of the case, or dismissing the complaint. The case is still ongoing. Wasn't this just a ruling on Hasbro attempting to put a preliminary injunction on Asus being able to continue selling the tablet while all of this litigation begins?