Judge Rules Against Hasbro Over Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablet - Sales Can Continue

It appears that Hasbro, Inc. has lost the first round in the Hasbro vs Asus war for world domination.

Okay, so it is not so bad, but a ruling judge said that despite there being Transformers-brand products in the form of USBs and Brains transforming into a Lenovo laptop in Transformers Dark of the Moon, the general public will not confuse an Asus product with transforming toy robots.

Back in December of last year, Hasbro smacked Taiwanese technology company Asus with a lawsuit to try and get them to stop selling their Eee Pad Transformer Prime, which the toy company argued was infringing on their Transformers Prime trademark.

The judge believes that the name is not to play on the Transformers Prime popularity, but that it accurately depicts the tablet's capability, which can transform from a tablet and to a full QWERTY keyboard via a laptop dock.

The judge also believes that Hasbro took a bit too long to file a motion to stop sales of the tablet, since Asus has been using the name Transformer since it announced the original Eee Pad Transformer at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2011 and released in March of last year.

The Transformer Prime is a successor launched in December of last year.

In a response to the ruling, Hasbro states that the company will continue to work through the legal system to get Asus to stop selling its Android-based tablet.