As I understand it, it's an odd little area of law in which there is not a lot of certainty. Long and consistent use certainly strengthens a trademark though: it's unlikely any company (even LG with their Optimus phone) would ever be able to use Optimus Prime as Hasbro have so consistently used and protected the trademark, and it's so strongly connected to the brand. I would imagine that even if they didn't reuse it for 10 years Optimus Prime would still be too strong a mark for anyone to challenge. On the other hand, a mark like Slugslinger might be a lot harder to hold on to since it doesn't have that prominent association. There's certainly no rule that says they must use the trademark at least once in one period of time.Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
I wonder how quickly a company can lose a trademark after disuse. It might be as quickly as a year (which would explain why Hasbro are so keen on releasing lots of toys named "Optimus Prime" and "Megatron" every year; although I think they've gone a tad overboard (they would only need to release one of each per year)).
e.g. Bumblebee and Hound; the last time Hasbro used these names before they lost them was in 1995; G2 Go-Bot Bumblebee and the never released G2 Autoroller Sgt. Hound. My presumption has been that toys like BW Buzz Saw and K-9 were assigned these names because Hasbro had lost the rights to Bumblebee and Hound by this stage. Although those toys were released in 1997, Hasbro would've needed to register the names in 1996 well before their release, so their application for those names may have been knocked back as early as just one year after having registered them for the final year of G2 in '95.
Hasbro last used the name "Laserbeak" in 1985 and had lost it by 1997, hence the BW character's name had the cringeworthy spelling of "Lazorbeak." Hasbro last used the name "Weirdwolf" in 2007, which feels like yesterday to me, but was actually 9 freakin' years ago.
But it's also interesting to imagine why they can't just keep it a "less intrusive" variation, like "Decepticon Weirdwolf" or "Decepticon Weirdwulf" (wulf being German for wolf), or "Oddwolf" or "Oddwulf" or something like that. Wolfwire... Okay, he's a wolf. Wire?Still, I'll take Wolfwire over Tankor or Scattorwolf.
It's also worth pointing out that trademarks can be held in different areas. Hasbro could stop releasing all Transformers toys tomorrow (DON'T GET ANY IDEAS HASBRO) and if IDW were still publishing the comics they would be able to hold on to the trademarks at least in the area of comic book publishing.
I know that a lot of the above has been stated before but it's always worth talking about this when it comes up, especially as I still see some fans talking about Hasbro "losing the copyright" and other uneducated responses when talking about name changes and other IP issues. I recently saw someone speculating that Titans Return Clobber is so named because Hasbro lost the trademark on Grimlock, which is very unlikely given how much they've used it lately. BTW, the more likely explanation is they're trying to avoid confusion between this version of Grimlock and ARID Grimlock.
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