Optimus Prime of Transformers - Against Transformer Prime of Asus - Who will win?
This is about a case of a domainer squatting on the intellectual property of a famous hardware maker – and yet, the bad news will arrive from a different source.
At the end of 2010, computer maker Asus announced a new tablet by the name of Transformer Prime and someone went ahead and registered the domain name, TransformerPrime.com – according to top WHOIS tool DomainTools.
It’s not the first time that a product or service is leaked to the media a long time prior to its launch.
Here’s where it gets comedic: The name “Transformer Prime” was apparently deemed too close to the name of one of Hasbro‘s Transformer characters, the legendary Optimus Prime.
Hasbro filed a lawsuit against Asus, alleging trademark infringement despite the fact that toy robots and computer tablets don’t exactly fall in the same category; however, Hasbro is seeking monetary damages as well, claiming it has to protect its mark.
The Transformer Prime tablet by Asus only started shipping on December 19th, with raving reviews.
The domain name TransformerPrime.com is thus under potential litigation from two sources; whoever wins the trademark case will no doubt go after the domain as well.
