Anyone tried one of those kits to convert your strat to a 12 string?

JohnS37

I very much doubt if they have any formal protection over this.  Both methods of mounting the tuners employed on Rick 12 strings were around before Ricks started manufacturing them, and the combination of them doesn’t IMHO offer sufficient novelty for a patent.

ICBM

JohnS37 said:

I very much doubt if they have any formal protection over this.  Both methods of mounting the tuners employed on Rick 12 strings were around before Ricks started manufacturing them, and the combination of them doesn’t IMHO offer sufficient novelty for a patent.

A patent and a trademark are different things. Rickenbacker hold trademarks on many design details of their guitars, which in some cases really aren't that original.

DiMarzio also hold the trademarks to the term PAF and humbuckers with two cream bobbins, neither of which they even originated, let alone were a novelty.

thermionic

JohnS37 said:

I very much doubt if they have any formal protection over this.  Both methods of mounting the tuners employed on Rick 12 strings were around before Ricks started manufacturing them, and the combination of them doesn’t IMHO offer sufficient novelty for a patent.

Patents are not just granted for things that are novel. If both tuner mountings were already known separately, it may be inventive to combine them in that way, i.e. it wouldn’t be considered obvious to the average guitar designer to do it.

Patents are generally granted for a period of 20 years, when they expire anybody can copy the invention. Intellectual property can be protected in other ways of course like trade marks (the name, the logo), copyright, or a registered design.