I'm not arguing, but genuinely curious. Does the fact that DC's Bumblebee predate the Transformers by about 8 years not matter in this case. Is it just a matter of who secures the trademark rights?
Nevermind - I saw that there was a whole thread about it.
It doesn't matter, it's more which one is more well known. Which I would definitely argue is the Transformer, who's been a main character in multiple incarnations for over 30 years as opposed to the DC hero who's been in a few episodes of Teen Titans and Young Justice.
This is on DC more than anything, they should have registered their opposition to the trademark back when they had the chance. This happened with Hasbro and Marvel over the new ROM comics, where they ended up splitting the name "Dire Wraith" when Marvel opposed a trademark registration and Hasbro totally reworked much of the backstory as a result.
If you want to keep your trademarks, you have to defend them. I mean, let's not even get into the shit fest that is the term "superhero" being a CO OWNED registered trademark of Marvel and DC.
A good example of this, funnily enough, is the Avengers. In the UK and Ireland the first film was known as Marvel Avengers Assemble to avoid being confused with the 60s tv series, whereas in the US there is a comic called Steed & Ms. Peel because a comic already called Avengers exists.
