As you all know, the Asus Transformer Prime is under fire for its name bearing a striking resemblance to Hasbro’s popular Transformer character, Optimus Prime. This news left a lot of room for speculation and questions regarding how this issue would be handled. Today, Asus has released a statement that should, at very least, bring a sigh of relief to those who have already pre-ordered the Transformer Prime and are anxiously awaiting the delivery man to drop off a package with their name on it.
Spokesman Chang Wei-ming said “internal assessments conducted by the company found no patent infringement issues” and will not halt any production.
Hasbro is anything but pleased with the world’s first quad-core tablet, and they fear that the Asus Transformer Prime label might cause confusion among consumers. In my opinion, Habro should be happy — it’s an homage, if you think about it. Optimus Prime is one of the coolest and most powerful cartoon characters out there. I think it’s only fitting for the tablet we’ve all been talking about to continue the trend by adding a bit more interest into the story with their strategic name “borrowing”.
Hasbro is suing Asus for trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trademark dilution. I can understand 2-out-of-3 of those lawsuits, but unfair competition? Really? I get the grand scheme of things, but since when have computer makers and cartoon makers been in a direct competition? Maybe it’s over my head.
At any rate, we’ll keep our eyes on this story and let you know once there are more developments.
Source: Focus Taiwan  Via: AfterDawn
