So these were recently filed by Hasbro.
tsdr.uspto.gov
tsdr.uspto.gov
Obviously, those are for the upcoming "Rise of the Beasts" film.
Which has led a lot of people to speculate whether this means they could have simply used those insignias before and then sued Hasbro for trademark infringement.
Obviously, that's not how this works, but it made me curious.
Some people have also suggested that it might be possible that Kenner, rather than Hasbro, had originally registered the insignias.
So I started researching the full history of Hasbro's trademarks for Transformers faction insigias.
You're welcome.
Preface: IANAL (I am not a lawyer). I'm sure a lawyer will be able to answer this much better, but I'd like to start with "it's complicated". As someone said a long time ago, when it comes to trademark law, there is no simple "A plus B equals C, all the time".
Kenner as a company apparently only ever applied for 90 trademarks with the USPTO for "toys", none of which are image marks. That's in part due to the fact that during the time Kenner was a separate company from Hasbro, trademarks were of less relevance than they are today. (For example, Tonka's GoBots line featured toys named "Blaster", "Rumble" and "Warpath" that were available concurrently with Hasbro's Transformers toys of those same names, while Tomy's US division had registered the name "Scrapper" in the "toys" category in 1985, the same year Hasbro released the Constructicons, decades before Tomy merged with Takara, and as far as I'm aware, none of those caused any trademark disputes between those companies, though a lawyer with in-depth knowledge of US trademark history may correct me on this.)
Also, Kenner was purchased by Tonka in 1987, and Tonka itself was subsequently purchased by Hasbro in 1991, so it would have made zero sense for Kenner rather than Hasbro to trademark anything Transformers-related. By the time Beast Wars came out, "Kenner" was merely one of Hasbro's many brands in a legal sense. Yes, Kenner's old Cincinatti offices still existed until they were closed down in 2000, but the company was all "Hasbro", not "Kenner". The original 1995 trademark registration for "Beast Wars" was filed by Hasbro, not Kenner, for starters.
So that's that.
Next, I've actually done the work and researched all the image marks registered by Hasbro with the USPTO.
Simply put, each time an insignia is significantly changed ("significantly" might mean something different to Hasbro that it would mean for you and me), Hasbro files a new trademark application. I would assume that just having one of these insignias registered is sufficient for trademark protection for all minor variations, but sometimes Hasbro just wants to make extra sure.
However, it would appear that Hasbro didn't actually register faction insignias as trademarks at all prior to 2002. Why? Might be in part due to a changing culture regarding trademarks, as I elaborated on above. As a matter of fact, none of the original 1996-2000 Beast Wars toys featured any trademark claims for the faction insignias on their packaging, and neither did any of the G1 figures. These are all the insignia trademarks I could find with the USPTO:
Trademark claims started to appear behind Autobot and Decepticon insignias in 2002, the same year Hasbro filed for a registration with the USPTO. The first few waves of Armada figures featured ™ claims behind the faction insignias on their packaging, but none behind the faction insignias on the stats cards. By the time the "Unicron Battles" subline imprint began, the registrations had been successful, and the ™ claims behind the faction insignias on the packaging were replaced by ® claims (although some of the stats cards still featured ™ claims instead.) Meanwhile, Series I and II of the Commemorative Series reissues didn't feature any separate trademark claims for the faction insignias at all, only ® claims for the "Transformers" title (which the faction insignias were incorporated into, like they had been back in the 1980s) and the faction names "Autobot" and "Decepticon" (each of which were preceded by the respective faction insignia). Beginning with Series III, the faction insignias preceding the faction names were followed by ™ claims, which were then replaced by ® claims beginning with Series V. (If you see a Commemorative Series Ultra Magnus or Powermaster Optimus Prime with an ® claim behind the faction insigna on the packaging, that's a 2012 Asian market re-release of the reissue, which also lacks the "Commemorative Series" moniker.)
So does this mean you could have just used the Autobot, Decepticon, Maximal and Predacon insignias before that? Probably not.
Why?
Because you do not need to register a trademark with the USPTO in order to defend it. It just tips the balance in your favor. Significantly so.
Simply put, in order to claim a trademark, all you need to do is use it and slap a ™ behind it. That's how Hasbro has been doing it with the Maximal faction insignia for the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary reissues, Titanium Series Optimus Primal, 2008 Universe Deluxe Class Cheetor and the Robot Heroes figures, Thrilling 30 Rattrap and Rhinox, the Platinum Edition "Year of the Monkey" Optimus Primal figure and Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus. (For the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary line, Hasbro had apparently fogotten that they had the Predacon faction insignia - but not the Maximal faction insignia! - registered as a trademark ever since 2002, as 10th Anniversary Megatron, Waspinator and "Predacon Tarantulus" all featured ™ instead of ® claims behind their faction insignias on their packaging. Hasbro then remembered again for 2008 Universe Deluxe Class Dinobot and the Robot Heroes figures, which featured ® claims behind the Predacon faction insignias but only ™ claims after the Maximal faction insignias. By the time Thrilling 30 Waspinator was released, the registration had already expired, so he featured a ™ claim behind the Predacon faction insignia on his packaging again. Also, for some reason, Titanium Series Beast Wars Megatron featured a Decepticon faction insignia on his packaging rather than a Predacon one, even though Optimus Primal from the same assortment featured a Maximal insignia on his packaging.)
The difference between an unregistered ™ trademark and a registered ® trademark is the burden of proof in a trademark dispute. With an unregistered ™ trademark, you need to prove that your use of the mark precedes the opposing party's use, and that you have been using it consistently ever since. With a registered ® trademark, your evidence is already on record with the USPTO, and thus the opposing party has a considerably higher risk of losing the case against you.
Postscript 1: For any modern figures in "worldwide" packaging that was first introduced in 2019 (featuring texts in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese), which includes the Walmart exclusive "Vintage Beast Wars" reissues, Hasbro has abandoned ™ and ® claims altogether because they have never been featured on European packaging anyways, and those symbols either have no legal power whatsoever in most markets outside the United States, or Hasbro simply hasn't registered all names and symbols in all markets, and thus doesn't want to falsely claim a trademark (or worse, a trademark registration) in all international markets indiscriminately.
Postscript 2: There's an old myth among Transformers fans which claims that the Generation 2 Autobot and Decepticon insignias were originally created by Hasbro UK, whose license for using the original faction insignias owned by Hasbro US had expired. Since I've already written up a refutal for this claim for TFWiki three years ago, which I had to update with some of my recent discoveres as outlined above anyways, I will simply paste the whole thing here:
The first half is maybe true, the second half certainly isn't. While the new Autobot and Decepticon faction insignias were popularized by the Generation 2 line, said line didn't start in Europe until 1994, a year later than in the US. Instead, the Transformers brand had continued in Europe even after its cancellation in the United States in 1990, and new European-"exclusive" figures were still being released in 1993, many of which were later re-released in rebranded Generation 2 packaging in Europe in 1994, while some of them were also made available (including some color, name and faction changes) under the Generation 2 line in the United States in 1993. It was those designed-for-Europe 1993 pre-Generation 2 figures that had first featured the new Autobot and Decepticon insignias on their packaging, and a popular myth claims that they had become a necessity for the European market due to Hasbro UK and Hasbro US being legally considered distinct entities under international law, and Hasbro UK alternatively didn't want to continue paying their parent company the fee for being allowed to use these symbols, or the license for using them had expired.
The holes in this theory are legion: First of all, Hasbro US didn't actually register the original Autobot and Decepticon insignias as trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office until 2002. That was also the same year when those insgnias were first claimed as trademarks on the toys' packaging. How, then, could Hasbro US, assuming it was indeed a distinct legal entity, enforce those insignias as trademarks by 1993, let alone internationally? Why exactly would the UK Patent Office be enforcing the trademarks of a (supposedly) foreign company that didn't do business in the UK? In fact, why would anyone be enforcing trademark claims against Hasbro UK on behalf of Hasbro US? And why would this only affect the faction insignias? Wouldn't the names "Transformers", "Autobot" and "Decepticon" be equally subject to those alleged licensing fees?
A much more likely explanation is that the faction insignias were changed for the same reason the "Transformers" title logo was changed to a new version (both in the US and Europe) in 1989, along with a major redesign of the toys' packaging, and why there had been another change to the packaging design and "Transformers" title logo for the European releases in 1992: To "refresh" the overall presentation of the brand, making everyhing look "new" and different for marketing reasons. Now whether the new insignias were originally created by Hasbro US for the Generation 2 line and were simply applied to the European 1993 toys first for the sake of consistency, or whether they had indeed been created by Hasbro UK and Hasbro US just liked them so much they decided to adopt them for the Generation 2 line, is up for debate.
Trademark Status & Document Retrieval
tsdr.uspto.gov
Trademark Status & Document Retrieval
tsdr.uspto.gov
Obviously, those are for the upcoming "Rise of the Beasts" film.
Which has led a lot of people to speculate whether this means they could have simply used those insignias before and then sued Hasbro for trademark infringement.
Obviously, that's not how this works, but it made me curious.
Some people have also suggested that it might be possible that Kenner, rather than Hasbro, had originally registered the insignias.
So I started researching the full history of Hasbro's trademarks for Transformers faction insigias.
You're welcome.
Preface: IANAL (I am not a lawyer). I'm sure a lawyer will be able to answer this much better, but I'd like to start with "it's complicated". As someone said a long time ago, when it comes to trademark law, there is no simple "A plus B equals C, all the time".
Kenner as a company apparently only ever applied for 90 trademarks with the USPTO for "toys", none of which are image marks. That's in part due to the fact that during the time Kenner was a separate company from Hasbro, trademarks were of less relevance than they are today. (For example, Tonka's GoBots line featured toys named "Blaster", "Rumble" and "Warpath" that were available concurrently with Hasbro's Transformers toys of those same names, while Tomy's US division had registered the name "Scrapper" in the "toys" category in 1985, the same year Hasbro released the Constructicons, decades before Tomy merged with Takara, and as far as I'm aware, none of those caused any trademark disputes between those companies, though a lawyer with in-depth knowledge of US trademark history may correct me on this.)
Also, Kenner was purchased by Tonka in 1987, and Tonka itself was subsequently purchased by Hasbro in 1991, so it would have made zero sense for Kenner rather than Hasbro to trademark anything Transformers-related. By the time Beast Wars came out, "Kenner" was merely one of Hasbro's many brands in a legal sense. Yes, Kenner's old Cincinatti offices still existed until they were closed down in 2000, but the company was all "Hasbro", not "Kenner". The original 1995 trademark registration for "Beast Wars" was filed by Hasbro, not Kenner, for starters.
So that's that.
Next, I've actually done the work and researched all the image marks registered by Hasbro with the USPTO.
Simply put, each time an insignia is significantly changed ("significantly" might mean something different to Hasbro that it would mean for you and me), Hasbro files a new trademark application. I would assume that just having one of these insignias registered is sufficient for trademark protection for all minor variations, but sometimes Hasbro just wants to make extra sure.
However, it would appear that Hasbro didn't actually register faction insignias as trademarks at all prior to 2002. Why? Might be in part due to a changing culture regarding trademarks, as I elaborated on above. As a matter of fact, none of the original 1996-2000 Beast Wars toys featured any trademark claims for the faction insignias on their packaging, and neither did any of the G1 figures. These are all the insignia trademarks I could find with the USPTO:
Trademark claims started to appear behind Autobot and Decepticon insignias in 2002, the same year Hasbro filed for a registration with the USPTO. The first few waves of Armada figures featured ™ claims behind the faction insignias on their packaging, but none behind the faction insignias on the stats cards. By the time the "Unicron Battles" subline imprint began, the registrations had been successful, and the ™ claims behind the faction insignias on the packaging were replaced by ® claims (although some of the stats cards still featured ™ claims instead.) Meanwhile, Series I and II of the Commemorative Series reissues didn't feature any separate trademark claims for the faction insignias at all, only ® claims for the "Transformers" title (which the faction insignias were incorporated into, like they had been back in the 1980s) and the faction names "Autobot" and "Decepticon" (each of which were preceded by the respective faction insignia). Beginning with Series III, the faction insignias preceding the faction names were followed by ™ claims, which were then replaced by ® claims beginning with Series V. (If you see a Commemorative Series Ultra Magnus or Powermaster Optimus Prime with an ® claim behind the faction insigna on the packaging, that's a 2012 Asian market re-release of the reissue, which also lacks the "Commemorative Series" moniker.)
So does this mean you could have just used the Autobot, Decepticon, Maximal and Predacon insignias before that? Probably not.
Why?
Because you do not need to register a trademark with the USPTO in order to defend it. It just tips the balance in your favor. Significantly so.
Simply put, in order to claim a trademark, all you need to do is use it and slap a ™ behind it. That's how Hasbro has been doing it with the Maximal faction insignia for the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary reissues, Titanium Series Optimus Primal, 2008 Universe Deluxe Class Cheetor and the Robot Heroes figures, Thrilling 30 Rattrap and Rhinox, the Platinum Edition "Year of the Monkey" Optimus Primal figure and Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus. (For the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary line, Hasbro had apparently fogotten that they had the Predacon faction insignia - but not the Maximal faction insignia! - registered as a trademark ever since 2002, as 10th Anniversary Megatron, Waspinator and "Predacon Tarantulus" all featured ™ instead of ® claims behind their faction insignias on their packaging. Hasbro then remembered again for 2008 Universe Deluxe Class Dinobot and the Robot Heroes figures, which featured ® claims behind the Predacon faction insignias but only ™ claims after the Maximal faction insignias. By the time Thrilling 30 Waspinator was released, the registration had already expired, so he featured a ™ claim behind the Predacon faction insignia on his packaging again. Also, for some reason, Titanium Series Beast Wars Megatron featured a Decepticon faction insignia on his packaging rather than a Predacon one, even though Optimus Primal from the same assortment featured a Maximal insignia on his packaging.)
The difference between an unregistered ™ trademark and a registered ® trademark is the burden of proof in a trademark dispute. With an unregistered ™ trademark, you need to prove that your use of the mark precedes the opposing party's use, and that you have been using it consistently ever since. With a registered ® trademark, your evidence is already on record with the USPTO, and thus the opposing party has a considerably higher risk of losing the case against you.
Postscript 1: For any modern figures in "worldwide" packaging that was first introduced in 2019 (featuring texts in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese), which includes the Walmart exclusive "Vintage Beast Wars" reissues, Hasbro has abandoned ™ and ® claims altogether because they have never been featured on European packaging anyways, and those symbols either have no legal power whatsoever in most markets outside the United States, or Hasbro simply hasn't registered all names and symbols in all markets, and thus doesn't want to falsely claim a trademark (or worse, a trademark registration) in all international markets indiscriminately.
Postscript 2: There's an old myth among Transformers fans which claims that the Generation 2 Autobot and Decepticon insignias were originally created by Hasbro UK, whose license for using the original faction insignias owned by Hasbro US had expired. Since I've already written up a refutal for this claim for TFWiki three years ago, which I had to update with some of my recent discoveres as outlined above anyways, I will simply paste the whole thing here:
The first half is maybe true, the second half certainly isn't. While the new Autobot and Decepticon faction insignias were popularized by the Generation 2 line, said line didn't start in Europe until 1994, a year later than in the US. Instead, the Transformers brand had continued in Europe even after its cancellation in the United States in 1990, and new European-"exclusive" figures were still being released in 1993, many of which were later re-released in rebranded Generation 2 packaging in Europe in 1994, while some of them were also made available (including some color, name and faction changes) under the Generation 2 line in the United States in 1993. It was those designed-for-Europe 1993 pre-Generation 2 figures that had first featured the new Autobot and Decepticon insignias on their packaging, and a popular myth claims that they had become a necessity for the European market due to Hasbro UK and Hasbro US being legally considered distinct entities under international law, and Hasbro UK alternatively didn't want to continue paying their parent company the fee for being allowed to use these symbols, or the license for using them had expired.
The holes in this theory are legion: First of all, Hasbro US didn't actually register the original Autobot and Decepticon insignias as trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office until 2002. That was also the same year when those insgnias were first claimed as trademarks on the toys' packaging. How, then, could Hasbro US, assuming it was indeed a distinct legal entity, enforce those insignias as trademarks by 1993, let alone internationally? Why exactly would the UK Patent Office be enforcing the trademarks of a (supposedly) foreign company that didn't do business in the UK? In fact, why would anyone be enforcing trademark claims against Hasbro UK on behalf of Hasbro US? And why would this only affect the faction insignias? Wouldn't the names "Transformers", "Autobot" and "Decepticon" be equally subject to those alleged licensing fees?
A much more likely explanation is that the faction insignias were changed for the same reason the "Transformers" title logo was changed to a new version (both in the US and Europe) in 1989, along with a major redesign of the toys' packaging, and why there had been another change to the packaging design and "Transformers" title logo for the European releases in 1992: To "refresh" the overall presentation of the brand, making everyhing look "new" and different for marketing reasons. Now whether the new insignias were originally created by Hasbro US for the Generation 2 line and were simply applied to the European 1993 toys first for the sake of consistency, or whether they had indeed been created by Hasbro UK and Hasbro US just liked them so much they decided to adopt them for the Generation 2 line, is up for debate.
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