Last year it was announced that Hasbro was going to sue Asus over the branding of the Transformer Prime; apparently, people all over the planet were confusing a tablet with shape-shifting robots. Now the case has been settled—Hasbro lost a preliminary hearing—but the court ruling is quite hilarious.
Hilarious by the standards of most other court rulings, of course. At times, this thing reads more like an i09 article than something a judge would say. As Paid Content has it, the judge explained:
"The Autobots are led by the virtuous Optimus Prime character, while the Decepticons follow the powerful Megatron. According to Hasbro, Optimus Prime is intended to epitomize honor, duty, leadership, and freedom...
"In the third film, an Autobot character known as "Brains" disguised itself as a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge Plus laptop [...] Hasbro developed the "Transformers Prime" animated television series, which began airing in approximately November 2010. The series focuses on the life and story of the Optimus Prime character. "Prime" was added to the "Transformers" mark in the program's name to emphasize this focus. Thus far, the series has received several Emmy nominations and awards and has been aired in 170 countries...
"There is nothing gimmicky about the Eee Pad Transformer or the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, nor can it be said that there is any similarity in the use or function between Hasbro and Asus's
products."
Hasbro, as you may expect, aren't happy with this first result. Maybe it should pick a proper legal battle next time? [Paid Content]
Image by Sudhamshu under Creative Commons license