HASBRO CLAIMS ASUS ARE DECEPTICONS

In April 2011, the computer maker Asus released its “Transformers” line of laptops. Hasbro, maker of the popular “Transformers” toy franchise contacted Asus and asked them stop using the name, but did not file suit. Yet, this month Asus revealed its ‘sequel’ to the “Transformers” laptop: Transformer Prime. Optimus Prime is the name of the leader of the good Transformers, the Autobots, and is likely the most famous of the Transformers. Thus, Hasbro filed suit for trademark infringement in LA federal court this week. In addition to the name “Transformer Prime” it is also stated by Hasbro that the advertising campaign by Asus uses imagery that closely resembles that of the Transformers movies and video games,”in particular evoking the Transformers home planet of Cybertron.” Therefore, we have a case where Cybertron is not only mentioned in the complaint, but a key factual question may very well be how closely Asus commercials evoke the image of Cybertron. Cool.