Have you heard the news of the day? The web is blowing up over this one. A court has ruled that ASUS cannot sell their products using “Zen” branding due to a tradmark dispute in India. A long established brand in India has a line of “Zen” mobile products and took ASUS to court over the issue. Turns out ASUS lost in court but it’s not final just yet.
According to the news report, the Delhi High Court has issued an interim injunction that prevents ASUS from selling, offering and advertising any device bearing Zen, Zenfone and any other name related to these terms. This is effective as of May 29 and will remain in effect for eight weeks until July 24.
Here is the official statement from ASUS on the matter:
“The Asus legal team is currently working with the Delhi High Court in India to resolve the Zen Mobiles and ZenFone trademark lawsuit. The supply of ASUS smartphones, notebooks and other products, as well as technical support and after-sales service for all ASUS products remain unchanged for all consumers.”
There is one more court appearance over this legal battle apparently scheduled for July 10. Barring that, ASUS must stop using “Zen” branding in India with a matter of weeks. In general the tech websites articles about this news are talking a lot of doom and gloom over this and rightfully so.
With so much money invested into ZenFone in India, ASUS could take a substantial hit financially. Doing a rebrand is a big task, expensive and will take time for consumers to adjust. Imagine all the marketing materials and ads that ASUS currently has in the marketplace that could be affected.
This isn’t just an issue with “ZenFone” in India. Apparently this injunction applies to ZenBook as well which is actually a bigger or more lucrative brand of products for ASUS. We can’t forget about “ZenPad” either although ASUS has stopped producing products under the ZenPad brand recently and not just for the India market.
ASUS would know this was coming, or at least could be a possible outcome. Sometimes these situation resolve themselves behind closed doors. Considering the lesser of two evils, paying a company to use the branding (if that’s even possible) would be a more palatable solution than having to scrub the ZenFone and ZenBook brand entirely from the India market. It’s baffling to think how long ASUS has been selling under the ZenFone, ZenPad and ZenBook branding in India yet a challenge was issued now. But here we are.
[source: News18]
