Hasbro is to sue Asus over the Transformer Prime line

Optimus seems to be used by a few companies. A quick google shows that Nvidia used it too. I doubt theres much can be done about that as its a latin word meaning one of the best, aristocrat, noble.

I guess since Hasbro cant really go after 3rd parties, so this is the next big thing? or is Hasbro hard up for money?

I think it's worth mentioning that the "Transformer Prime" is the new up-model version of Asus's similar tablet/keyboard combo, which was named the Transformer. That one came out a full year ago.

Re: paul053 - It had some issues with the wifi which delayed it slightly, but it's mainly delayed because they aren't making it quickly enough to fulfill initial preorders, nevermind the new orders coming in. The thing is THE tablet to buy this season, apparently.

paul053 wrote:I admit ASUS naming is kind of confusing but Hasbro's action is way too late. IIRC, shouldn't this tablet be in the market already but got delayed due to some hardware issues?

There werese delays due to the dock. But it's been on the market at least two months now.

Consumers may be confused between a computer and a television show and toy line? God... f*** you Hasbro, as if ASUS quality control and customer service wasn't bad enough. Now someone wants to sue them.

That's just the way in this lawyer filled mess of a world though. It's all about making money for nothing. I hate Hasbro so much right now. I want to see the company burn at this point. Big companies like Hasbro, hiring decent talented people like Lauren Faust to produce television shows for toys which have been outsourced to slave labor, suing companies for no good reason, driving the economy into the ground and making me f***ing addicted to stupid plastic toys into my adulthood... f*** I don't even a right to say this s***. Imma go look for those missing deluxes now...

A couple of things that are important to keep in perspective.

Part of the US trademark system is a requirement to vigorously defend your mark or you will lose it. How precisely big an "infringer" has to be to qualify as a threat is something only a lawyer could probably tell you.

Second, given that in the last couple of iterations of the branding there have been licensed PC peripherals using the trademarks, it is possible that the Prime name has been applied for in that category, but I'm too lazy to go to uspto.gov and look it up. Transformer Prime is a bit close to Transformers: Prime in the grand scheme of things.

Oh, and lastly, I don't know for certain if this applies but it just occurred to me. It is possible that Hasbro expected that Prime was a (complementary) Codename that would be relabelled once the product when to promotion and market. This happens a LOT in IT particularly since we IT geeks love to codename projects after things we think are ubercool.

to be fair it is called transformer prime not transformers prime and each word usage can be justified, it transforms from one thing to anotther hence transformer and i guess they consider it there best line so hence the prime but i was wondering if any thing would come of this. When i first heard the name of the computer i thought it was a TF branded computer being used to promote the franchise. Id like to know why hasbro decided to go after this one and not one of the many products that uses it names like all the products with the name optimus

Wonder if General Electric has ever given Hasbro crap about using transformers as a name for a franchise since it is the name of a staple component of the electric system.

Megatron Wolf wrote:to be fair it is called transformer prime not transformers prime and each word usage can be justified, it transforms from one thing to anotther hence transformer and i guess they consider it there best line so hence the prime but i was wondering if any thing would come of this. When i first heard the name of the computer i thought it was a TF branded computer being used to promote the franchise. Id like to know why hasbro decided to go after this one and not one of the many products that uses it names like all the products with the name optimus

Because I'm assuming they don't own a trademark on the name optimus. It's "optimus prime".

Anyone can use the word "transformer", except for use as a toy or one of the other mediums that the Transformers toy brand utilizes. It's the conjunction of these two words that is the issue. They could have called their tablet "Prime" or the ASUS Transformer, but I think it's the fact that they're calling it the Transformer Prime that is the issue.

I believe at one point Asus was going to launch their full line of tablets under the name Prime. I do know that there was a netbook/tablet that was marketed as the transformer. Either way, this is ridiculous because nobody is going to buy the transformer prime tablet thinking it's Megatron anyways.