if Toyota sells a Toyota brand air filter for their Corolla is not the unlicensed third party generic filter effectively a KO?


I personally prefer the term Independent toy manufacturers for companies that make unlicensed transformers product.

as mentioned above, 3rd party should really refer to companies producing licensed transformers product on behalf of Hasbro and Takara, of which there is plenty of.

Indie toy makers then refers to companies that make new toys based on HasTak IP (Fansproject Function X line for example) and completely new toys that only use a concept/mechanism that is now publicly available (Fansproject Glacial bots). This really also should refer to Accessories manufactured to go with licenced toys (Igears kup head for example, probably their best product)

Other items which are direct rip offs of transformation or even just a slight modification to the official product should fall into the KO bucket.


But as others have stated above, hasTak and the Indie companies probably wouldn't benefit much from the expense of working together and HasTak probably don't see a cost benefit in taking on Indie companies in court. They are taking them on in other ways, constant masterpiece releases (I personally wouldn't want them to release these any faster otherwise I'd have to start budgeting some out) and the new combiner wars line, which is pretty much part of their overall Generations line going forward.

I have some 1st party product, some 3rd party product and some Indie product and I like it all. I just wish I had the space and the money to buy more of it all.