Transformers names in other Hasbro lines
From MediaWiki
Over the years, a number of Transformers characters have shared their names with various characters and vehicles in other Hasbro lines. In many cases, this poses little to no problem for Hasbro, seeing as the company often already holds the trademark in the "toys" field, and most certainly won't take itself to court over the use of the name in question. In fact, using a name in another toy line (even one released by a Hasbro subsidiary) qualifies as a use of a trademark, hence making it "safe" for another term.
This list includes a few Takara Transformers characters as well, because why the hell not?
Shared names with G.I. Joe
Shared names with other Hasbro lines
Similarly, several other non-G.I. Joe Hasbro lines over the years have shared names with Transformers characters.
Notes
- G.I. Joe Sideswipe is modeled and named after Hasbro employee Andrew Frankel, who also worked on the Transformers toyline... and used the handle "Swiper" while active in TF fandom. Funny how that works out, isn't it?
- The Beast Wars name "Tarantulas" actually came from an unproduced Joe-series "Manimals" toy, Tarantulus.
- Contrary to fan rumors, the name Kobushi was NOT originally intended for an unreleased Xevoz figure. The unreleased Xevoz figure was named "Scarabushi."
- Hasbro has occasionally used names from non-Hasbro toylines that were obtained via corporate buyouts and the like for Transformers characters, with the most notable examples being Generation 2 Go-Bots, named after the GoBots toyline, and Armada Leader-1, named after the leader of the "good guy" Tonka GoBots.
- Hasbro and Tonka also shared certain GoBots names when they were still in competition. Blaster, Rumble and Warpath were both Transformers and GoBots. Similarly, "Scrapper" was registered as a trademark by Tomy's US branch in 1985 (waaaay before Tomy merged with Takara into TakaraTomy), the same year Hasbro released the Constructicon toy of the same name. That was possible because trademark law still worked differently back in the 1980s, and companies were less aggressive about protecting their products' names.
- Hasbro didn't use the name "Onslaught" for 14 years following 1994's Generation 2 Onslaught. In the meantime, Marvel had created its own Onslaught character, with Toy Biz releasing their own toys of the character (the first as part of 1997's X-Men: Onslaught line, the second as the build-a-figure from 2006's Marvel Legends Series 13). By 2007, Toy Biz had lost the Marvel license to Hasbro, and the following year saw the release of three new Transformers "Onslaught" toys as part of the Universe line. While there's no concrete evidence and this might be mere coincidence, it's possible that Hasbro's lawyers wanted to avoid a trademark conflict until they had established a business relationship with Marvel again. Either way, there has been no new toy of the Marvel Onslaught character released by Hasbro thus far.
- Hasbro did, however, release several other figures based on established Marvel characters as part of their Marvel Legends line that share names with Transformers characters such as Venom, Guardian, Cannonball and Warpath. They're listed down here because these characters are original Marvel properties and the toys are only produced and released by Hasbro under license. Coincidentally, the Marvel Venom character was also part of the Transformers: Crossovers line-up, though.
