Harmony Gold Sues Hasbro for Copyright Infringement
Harmony Gold U.S.A. Inc. has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Hasbro, Inc. seeking an injunction against Hasbro’s continued sale of the “G.I. Joe and the Transformers … The Epic Conclusion” boxed toy, specifically because the toy set includes a G.I. Joe Skystriker toy which Harmony Gold asserts bears a too-close resemblance to its trademarked Robotech Veritech Fighter VF-1 concept. Hasbro’s G.I. Joe Skystriker is a jet fighter plane featuring a paint scheme that evokes the Transformers character Jetfire. Hasbro does own the legal right to the Jetfire character and its imagery, which is originally based on the Macross VF-1 Valkyrie design that appears in Robotech.
Source: Anime News Network
Related Posts
About The Author
john
Add a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
As many of us mecha fans are aware, the original Jetfire toy was a slight repaint of the Hikaru Ichijo Special Valkyrie made by Takatoku; Hasbro got the toys via Takara. When Bandai got the Takatoku molds a while later and began making reissues, Takara somehow had an agreement from MACROSS’ rightsholders to lock Bandai from selling the toys in North America (with or without Harmony Gold’s permission). Harmony Gold renewed their outside-Japan rights with the MACROSS rightsholders in 2008 and their license will continue in effect till 2021.
The fact that Hasbro modified the Skystriker molds to include an add-on booster pack from the MACROSS Super Valkyrie is, in my opinion, adding insult to injury.
While Harmony Gold may have domestic rights to the Robotech franchise, Hasbro seems within its own rights here because Hasbro does have the legal rights to both Jetfire and the G.I. Joe Skystriker, so Hasbro should have a legal right to combine the two.