Imagineer Pledges to Fight for the Medabots Trademark

Imagineer has released a statement regarding the dispute of the Medabots trademark in Europe. It plans to win back ownership of the trademark after another person claimed and used it to prevent the company from releasing games from the well-known franchise in the region. [Thanks, 4Gamer.]

The issue began after Kevin Comadrán de Frutos, from Andorra, claimed the Medabots trademark at the EU Intellectual Property Office in 2018, after verifying that it had expired and been unused for a long time. Wanting to create his own video game with the trademark, Comadrán filed a lawsuit against Imagineer at the Commercial Court of Alicante in Spain. The EU Trademark Court ruled in favor of Comadrán and ordered Imagineer to refrain from marketing and publishing games with the infringing trademarked title in the European Union on July 15, 2020.

In the Japanese press release, Imagineer denied the trademark infringement claims made by Comadrán. The company intends to assert that it is the original owner of the Medabots franchise. In addition to fighting against the claim, it also plans to demand that the European trademark ownership be transferred to the company. If it fails, Imagineer would ask for the trademark to be removed altogether from the EUIPO.

Medabots is the official English title for Medarot, a series of robot-themed video games established by Imagineer with its first-ever title released on the Game Boy in Japan in 1997. Although the franchise was also known for an anime show that received an English localization, only three games were localized in the west by Natsume. One was the 2002 remake of Medarot 2 for Game Boy Advance, which was titled Medabots in the West. The spin-off fighting game Medabots AX and the 2003 GameCube game Medabots Infinity were also localized.

Imagineer recently released Medabots S for mobile devices and Medabots Classics Plus—a compilation of eight Medabots games that appeared on systems like Game Boy and Game Boy Advance—for the Nintendo Switch in 2020. All of them are currently available only in Japan.