The Energon Pub

Doesn't the creator of Transformers toys have a patent that would protect other companies from creating similar toys? Sometimes these knock offs are really similar in design to the Transformers toys. These companies would be out of business if they couldn't come up with original designs and potential buyers wouldn't have to worry about getting a knock off.

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I love robot pups like the Zhu Zhu Puppies. I love pixar movies.

Yes they do. Some groups (I don't use the term company as the term implies something that most 3rd parties aren't) get around it by making similar-but-not-exact copies of figures and call them different things.

Others do blatant ripoffs but are based in China where no one can easily get to them.

In the long run though they all market to collectors which still buy Hasbro's/Takara's stuff anyways, so their profit margins are probably not too affected by the deal.

Anyone can make transforming Robot toys - you just can't call them Transformers. Or use HasTak designs, names and concepts.

There is no patent wide enough to blanket an entire concept or Product field, just specific ones attached to branded items. That's why there are more than one Car Company in the world - but only one that's allowed to call them Fords.

Some 3rd Party Companies seem to be smart enough to see this and skirt round the whole IP Issue, others like iGear don't. If Hasbro/Tak ever got serious about going after them these are the types of Companies they would have a realistic prospect of shutting down - not my beloved Fansproject.....thank the Maker.

mariahdevans wrote:Doesn't the creator of Transformers toys have a patent that would protect other companies from creating similar toys? Sometimes these knock offs are really similar in design to the Transformers toys. These companies would be out of business if they couldn't come up with original designs and potential buyers wouldn't have to worry about getting a knock off.

With the earlier stuff, like G1 in particular, the patents actually do the opposite.

In the US, at least, products (as opposed to other types of art, like books, movies, or music) are considered to enter into the public domain upon first sale. If I make a new, unique widget and sell that widget, I've made the world a better place by entering it into the public domain where anyone can buy it from me and use it, or reverse engineer it and make their own.

Now, obviously, if I've spent $100,000 to do the R&D and bring this to market, this seems pretty unfair, and when the guy down the street puts $5,000 into copying my product and selling it cheaper than mine, I'm unlikely to ever put effort into developing another product, and others are likely to follow suit, so it stifles innovation by the little guy.

To combat this, early its history, the US government decided to offer up patents to inventors to make the business of inventing more sustainable. What this does is grant the original developer of the product a *limited* monopoly right over the product for a short period (7, 11, 13 years, etc. based on the type of product) as an incentive to invest in innovation. After that, it's right back into the public domain where anyone can copy, modify, or improve upon it, thus adding more innovation to the world and creating an even better place.

Now, back to transformers, what this means is that not only have the original patents for G1 and some later series long since expired, the patent records are all on file and exist as blue prints for anyone to re-create their own, if they were so inclined. It is arguable that anyone that wanted to take those original G1 patents, upsize them as "masterpiece" figures, and improve upon the articulation and detail of the prior art would be well within their rights to do so.

What HasTak *may* own, however, is the character likeness rights under and names under copyright and trademark laws which are different beasts altogether. They *may* be able to claim that in addition to the actual design of G1 Optimus, e.g, that his look and color scheme is such an iconic part of the character that they reserve trade rights over that as well. Of course, everytime they tinker with that look - add flames for the movie, take away his mouthpiece, recolor him as Nemesis Prime, turn him into a monkey, etc, they weaken that argument.

So, can a third party make a Masterpiece Bumblebee based on G1 blueprints and called something different? Probably. And since there's already plenty of prior art, such as Bandai's Bugbite, they're probably even safer, especially if they don't use his horns, use a color different than yellow and don't make him *too* closely resemble a Bug so as not to step on VW's rights.

Anyway, I'm not sure why that just went on as long as it did, but in a long-winded roundabout answer to your question. The original expired patents, not only don't protect Hasbro much, they hand them the blueprints to reproduce, modify, and expand upon them with relative ease.

That's not to say they can't be sued, since anyone can sue anyone for anything. It just means that in a jury trial, with competent lawyers, they would likely not prevail, and would stand to lose quite a lot in terms of Money, Goodwill, and potential further loss of rights be reopening and re-examining their patents like what happened with their patent disupte over Magic: The Gathering a few years back.

TheBigToyAuction wrote:

mariahdevans wrote:Doesn't the creator of Transformers toys have a patent that would protect other companies from creating similar toys? Sometimes these knock offs are really similar in design to the Transformers toys. These companies would be out of business if they couldn't come up with original designs and potential buyers wouldn't have to worry about getting a knock off.

With the earlier stuff, like G1 in particular, the patents actually do the opposite.

In the US, at least, products (as opposed to other types of art, like books, movies, or music) are considered to enter into the public domain upon first sale. If I make a new, unique widget and sell that widget, I've made the world a better place by entering it into the public domain where anyone can buy it from me and use it, or reverse engineer it and make their own.

Now, obviously, if I've spent $100,000 to do the R&D and bring this to market, this seems pretty unfair, and when the guy down the street puts $5,000 into copying my product and selling it cheaper than mine, I'm unlikely to ever put effort into developing another product, and others are likely to follow suit, so it stifles innovation by the little guy.

To combat this, early its history, the US government decided to offer up patents to inventors to make the business of inventing more sustainable. What this does is grant the original developer of the product a *limited* monopoly right over the product for a short period (7, 11, 13 years, etc. based on the type of product) as an incentive to invest in innovation. After that, it's right back into the public domain where anyone can copy, modify, or improve upon it, thus adding more innovation to the world and creating an even better place.

Now, back to transformers, what this means is that not only have the original patents for G1 and some later series long since expired, the patent records are all on file and exist as blue prints for anyone to re-create their own, if they were so inclined. It is arguable that anyone that wanted to take those original G1 patents, upsize them as "masterpiece" figures, and improve upon the articulation and detail of the prior art would be well within their rights to do so.

What HasTak *may* own, however, is the character likeness rights under and names under copyright and trademark laws which are different beasts altogether. They *may* be able to claim that in addition to the actual design of G1 Optimus, e.g, that his look and color scheme is such an iconic part of the character that they reserve trade rights over that as well. Of course, everytime they tinker with that look - add flames for the movie, take away his mouthpiece, recolor him as Nemesis Prime, turn him into a monkey, etc, they weaken that argument.

So, can a third party make a Masterpiece Bumblebee based on G1 blueprints and called something different? Probably. And since there's already plenty of prior art, such as Bandai's Bugbite, they're probably even safer, especially if they don't use his horns, use a color different than yellow and don't make him *too* closely resemble a Bug so as not to step on VW's rights.

Anyway, I'm not sure why that just went on as long as it did, but in a long-winded roundabout answer to your question. The original expired patents, not only don't protect Hasbro much, they hand them the blueprints to reproduce, modify, and expand upon them with relative ease.

That's not to say they can't be sued, since anyone can sue anyone for anything. It just means that in a jury trial, with competent lawyers, they would likely not prevail, and would stand to lose quite a lot in terms of Money, Goodwill, and potential further loss of rights be reopening and re-examining their patents like what happened with their patent disupte over Magic: The Gathering a few years back.

No sorry, that's not entirely correct. While the patents may be expired, Hasbro and Takara own the copyright on the robot-modes and alt-modes of those toys plus the likenesses.
The only thing someone can legally reproduce based on those patents are the transformation schemes, since those are the main thing of the patent. So you can make a toy that transforms exactly like G1 Prime, but it's not allowed to look like Prime in neither robot nor alt. And this is just based on the US situation, I'm pretty sure Takara still has their original Japanese patents.

I'm fairly confident in saying that were I to make a toy that looked exactly like G1 Sunstreaker's car mode, Hasbro would not be the company whose likeness rights I would be infringing.