ASUS has been getting a lot of headlines the past few days regarding their legal issues in India regarding the use of the word, “zen”. A court has ruled that ASUS must stop using “zen” by a set date in July, but there is one more opportunity for the company to get the order revoked. Perhaps as a good will gesture, evidence suggests ASUS is delaying their ZenFone 6 release date.
An astute observer named Mukul Sharma noticed that the Flipkart launch date of June 19th has been removed from ads. This would be no coincidence given the seriousness of the issue at hand and most certainly has been done as a result of the legal tensions.
It would not be helping their case to flaunt the ZenFone brand in light of what the court has ruled. However it does beg the question. How long can ASUS hold out on this? If the court won’t hear the case again until July, that’s an eternity when it comes to mobile phone technology.
I hope you have your popcorn. This story is quite a wrinkle for ASUS considering that they had identified the India market as very key for the company. It’s baffling to us that ASUS could invest so much into the “zen” branding in India and then so long after the fact they can be taken to court and told not to use any of their trademarks referencing “zen”. If this was established in the beginning, then obviously the transition would be far less painful, costly and embarrassing to ASUS. Can’t ASUS argue that they’ve been marketing and selling for years without an issue raised and shouldn’t that be enough to dismiss the complaint? Common sense says yes but clearly this story wants to tell us more.
Stay tuned. To those ASUS fans in India, not great news for you especially considering the release date of June 19th wasn’t far off. Hopefully there is some movement on this situation. Stay tuned and enjoy your popcorn!
