Rom the Space Knight Transformer

It seems I neglected to post about this when it was news, so here's a quick overview. The photo at right was a prototype for a potential addition to Hasbro's Transformers Bot Shots line as shown at the 2013 Toy Fair. The prototypes were all unlabeled, so its identity was a mystery. Later, a product listing got leaked to Transformers fandom which included an item called "TRA BOT SHOTS ROM THE SPACE KNIGHT A2587." Given the prototype's colors and the fact that it didn't match any known Transformer, said fandom decided that it must have been the prototype for Rom. Now, thanks to Joseph's comment and link provided on my previous post, we now know it appears this particular Bot Shot isn't coming to toy stores after all.

For more information on this, see the Transformers Wiki entry. And thanks to them for the photo.

An overdue Rom trademark update

An e-mail prompted me to finally see what the latest is on Hasbro's attempts to once again trademark ROM. I won't summarize the history like I did in the last update, but you can go read it for yourself if you need a refresher. Or, if you want to read the whole saga, you can start at the beginning. (Really, I've been following this since November 2008?) Since it's officially (somewhat) new information since the last update, I will confirm that all eight of Hasbro's original trademark filings are dead because they were either denied or Hasbro used up all their extensions.

So, there are currently three trademarks Hasbro has applied for. The first is for comic books and was granted in April 2013. They've already used the first of their five possible extensions to use it in commerce (i.e. publish a ROM comic book). Extensions are required every six months if Hasbro doesn't have proof of use. Five extensions give them three years to do so.

The second trademark is for "toy action figures and toy robots convertible into other visual toy forms," which leads to the already existing rumor that Hasbro is going to make Rom part of the Transformers toy line. It, too, was granted in April 2013 and has had one extension filed against it.

The final trademark is for "entertainment services, namely an on-going animated television series for children." This one was only granted in June 2013 and, because I've gotten lazy, is new to me. It would seem to contradict Hasbro making Rom part of the Transformers, unless such a TV series would be a spin-off of Transformers: Prime or something. The first extension was just granted last month.

And finally, I remind you that although Hasbro owns Rom, his look, and his three accessories, Marvel owns the other Spaceknights, Dire Wraiths, and everything else. So whatever — if anything — Hasbro ends up doing with the character is going to have to be different from what we Rom fans are used to.