Gibson Trademarked Guitars

[BassApprentice]

Gibson now have exclusive rights over ES, SG, Flying V and Explorer body shapes.

While it doesn't really affect us bass players yet, worrying precedent for all those merchants and luthiers who make and distrubute copies....

http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/read/gibson-confirms-exclusive-rights-to-trademarked-guitar-designs-in-legal-dispute-with-jhs/022100

[Naetharu]

To be honest I find this kind of reasonable. If I were Gibson I' probably be pretty annoyed if another company make look-a-likes and cut into my market share.

[SpondonBassed]

Right. I'm nipping out to the patents office to patent my own body shape. Soon I'll be collecting royalties from all you lot wot are carrying dad guts too.

Anyone for a Euro Banana?

[NancyJohnson]

Interesting quote at the end of that article:

[i]Brent Davis of Scarinci and Hollenbecl LLC, representing JHS, told the jury that many companies have used the allegedly unique trademarked guitar shapes over the decades — and that guitar customers know to look at the brand name on the headstock of a guitar to know who made it and not rely just on its shape.[/i]

[i]“The problem here is that these outlines of body shapes and headstocks of guitars have been used by so many different companies for the last half century that they don’t belong to anyone. They’re just standard shapes used by the industry,” he said.[/i]

I'm neither party to the case or much of the back history, but I can understand Gibson wanting to wrestle back control of their much copied and maligned designs. Plus, I suppose, with Gibson allegedly close to $600m in debt, every litigious dollar they can claw back will help them.

[Beer of the Bass]

I'd noticed that in the last couple of years a lot of SG and Les Paul copies have adopted an asymmetrical shape, and similarly some 335 copies are now going for a thinner horned variant. It does mean that anyone on a budget who is particularly attached to the original shape is going to either seek out an Epiphone or an older copy.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Beer of the Bass

[ivansc]

... so next thing fender will have guild sue them for adopting the "not quite SG" shapes of Guilds a while back.

[scrumpymike]

Maybe the
[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1489493920' post='3257358']
Interesting quote at the end of that article:

Plus, I suppose, with Gibson allegedly close to $600m in debt, every litigious dollar they can claw back will help them.
[/quote]

Maybe spending too many litigious dollars is what's put them into the red - certainly won't have helped. When it comes to legal action, they have left no stone unturned - witness the fact that a member of this forum was forced into an expensive re-design.

[Cato]

It might work in the the US, but internationally?

There's plenty of countries that don't really recognise international copyright or intellectual property rights.

[kodiakblair]

I'm with Cato on it being a USA only matter.

RIC were pretty on the ball but forgot about Australia that's why Pitbull can sell kits legally.

[EliasMooseblaster]

So to what extent do we think this lawsuit was motivated by all the comments on here and other forums along the lines of
"[i]I tell you what, I've got one of those JHS/Vintage models, and with the new Wilkinson hardware it's easily as good as some Epiphones I've tried...possibly even better than some Gibsons"?[/i]

[Naetharu]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1489493611' post='3257356']
Right. I'm nipping out to the patents office to patent my own body shape.
[/quote]

Ahh alas this is a Trademark issue and not a patent one so no pennies for you.

As to the degree to which this will come into effect here, it's pretty likely to stick. It'll not stop Chinese companies from making these Gibson replicas etc, but if in effect it will be against the law to sell such guitars within the UK and to import them for sale.

The idea of Trademark law is to allow a company to control its brand and stop other companies from getting rich of confusing the consumer. The nub of this case seems to be that the court agreed that these particular body-shapes are iconic to Gibson and form an integral part of their brand. Therefore they've prohibited others from making guitars to be sold that are the same shape(s).

The principle is the same as if you were to start a cola company. You can do that sure, but if you popped it into a coke shaped bottle, decorated the bottle to look like coke and only distinguished yourself by a tiny mark then you'd not be long for legal trouble.

It's an odd quirk of guitars that so many companies have for so long copied iconic brands. Strats and Les Pauls seem to be the most common culprits. By contrast, other brands (Rickenbacker in particular) are far more ferocious about people copping their brand. I guess this could mean that we see the Gibson copies going the same way as the Rick ones; you can still get them but you don't tend to find a bunch kicking around your local store.

[NancyJohnson]

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1489504695' post='3257503']
So to what extent do we think this lawsuit was motivated by all the comments on here and other forums along the lines of
"[i]I tell you what, I've got one of those JHS/Vintage models, and with the new Wilkinson hardware it's easily as good as some Epiphones I've tried...possibly even better than some Gibsons"?[/i]
[/quote]

Is it actually the Vintage range that prompted this? I really don't know. That said, the Les Paul Junior models do look pretty good...

[howdenspur]

I'm puzzled. I understood that to make a stance like Gibson's stick, they had to have made efforts to protect their trademark headstock/body shape or whatever (hence the approach Ric have taken). Various manufacturers have been making eg Les Paul copies for decades.

[scrumpymike]

[quote name='Cato' timestamp='1489502669' post='3257473']
It might work in the the US, but internationally?

There's plenty of countries that don't really recognise international copyright or intellectual property rights.
[/quote]

The Basschat forum member they came after is in Bristol.

Edited March 14, 2017 by scrumpymike

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='Naetharu' timestamp='1489507942' post='3257531']
Ahh alas this is a Trademark issue and not a patent one so no pennies for you.
[/quote]

Damn. I suppose that means I'll have to keep belly bashing for beer money.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGhQ9sT8b0[/media]

[EliasMooseblaster]

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1489510599' post='3257553']
Is it actually the Vintage range that prompted this? I really don't know. That said, the Les Paul Junior models do look pretty good...
[/quote]
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I think Vintage are owned by JHS, who the lawsuit was filed against.

[MoonBassAlpha]

I did notice that the Les Paul wasn't mentioned in the list of designs in the quoted article. That shape must represent more of the output of copies than the rest put together by a long chalk.

[darkandrew]

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1489524804' post='3257703']
I did notice that the Les Paul wasn't mentioned in the list of designs in the quoted article. That shape must represent more of the output of copies than the rest put together by a long chalk.
[/quote]

Hasn't the Les Paul shape lawsuit been and gone quite a while ago, hence all the so-called "lawsuit" copies and the reason that USA ESP Eclipses have only 1 tone control and a shorter bottom horn?

[MoonBassAlpha]

Didn't Gibson lose the case against PRS over their single cut? Or was the appeal repealed?

[Bassassin]

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1489530392' post='3257761']
Didn't Gibson lose the case against PRS over their single cut? Or was the appeal repealed?
[/quote]
They did and that will be why the LP is not in the list.

The "lawsuit guitars" thing was a dispute over headstock shapes in 1977 - Gibson's then-parent company Norlin asserting its ownership of the "open book" headstock which adorned most MIJ copies at the time. They threatened action against Elger Hoshino, US importer of Ibanez guitars, without noticing that the headstocks had been changed to a non-infringing design the previous year.

No legal action ever took place.

[Yank]

They shoulda gone after Hofner for copying their first bass, the violin shaped EB.

[Happy Jack]

I suspect there are enough differences between the two for such an action to have failed.

http://vintage-guitars.blogspot.com/2006/04/gibson-eb-1.html

http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/gallery/gallery2/bass.html

[Musicman20]

If Gibson actually just stepped up to QC as good as Musicman and PRS, they'd sell a lot more instruments anyway.

I've recently played a lot more guitar and I am astonished at some of the guitar forum posts about poor workmanship on £2k Les Pauls.

I want a nice classic tone of a Les Paul but I am not risking buying one.

[jacko]

Could have consequences for Alembic and their Exploiter model.

[NancyJohnson]

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1489577461' post='3258038']
If Gibson actually just stepped up to QC as good as Musicman and PRS, they'd sell a lot more instruments anyway.

I've recently played a lot more guitar and I am astonished at some of the guitar forum posts about poor workmanship on £2k Les Pauls.

I want a nice classic tone of a Les Paul but I am not risking buying one.
[/quote]

I have a mate who paid more than £3K for an Ace Frehley/Budokan Les Paul. It looks stunning, but he rarely played it as the action was too high and had been like that since he bought it new. The action was about 7mm at the 12th fret as there was a really bad front bow on the neck (I got the neck straightened over about five days...eighth/quarter turns of the truss rod daily). The guitar also has a slight neck hump where the neck is jointed to the body, which I suspect will need fret levelling to make it play better at the higher register. Pretty shocking QC to be honest.