Gibson Vs Dean: Gibson wins

Jetfire

So this Flying V court case between them has finished and Gibson has won apparently 

https://guitar.com/news/industry-news/dean-guilty-trademark-infringement-and-counterfeiting-gibson-flying-v-case/

roberty

Bit scary, wonder what will happen next

"a win for Gibson and the music community at large"

Not sure how this benefits the music community at large other than reduced consumer choice 

prowla

In fairness, the V is a copy.

I don't believe they are counterfeits though, as they were never presented as Gibsons.

The net effect will be that the Chinese will continue to make copies and domestic companies like Dean will have to innovate.

Harley Benton next?

CavemanGrogg

I'm actually in support of the verdict.  I really wish Fender would do the same thing too.  And I truly don't understand the people saying Dean should have won the case, or that it should have been thrown out.  If it wasn't for IP and copyright laws, there would be no such thing as professional musicians, artists, or authors.  Don't forget it was musicians - Metalica, who pointed the spotlight at MP3s, torrents, and file sharing with their little court cases - Napster, Shazaam and others, not their record label or management team.  And it's about time these companies, and many others I might add, innovated, this ''a better Stratocaster/Telecaster than Fender can make'', or ''made to the original specs X used to builfd to'', and ''built like X used to build theirs'', is to be blunt and to the point, stealing, and not just the design, but also reputation, recognition, and marketing to name a few things.

fretmeister

It’s a decision made by laymen on a jury. 

It will be appealed. 

It also only applies to US patents and nowhere else. Gibson lost everywhere else they tried this. 

barnstorm

^ Trademarks rather than patents, which is an important difference. Whatever happens next, would be interesting to see the more readable documents. The judgement that was issued a few years ago when Fender suddenly decided to try to trademark the Strat, Tele and (I think) P Bass shapes was pretty dismissive of the merits of the filing.

TeleMaster

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts. 

ICBM

I love how there’s a Heritage ad at the bottom of that article .

I’m surprised Gibson won - I would have thought they had waited far too long before doing this… Dean have been making V and Explorer shapes since the late 70s. If it gets appealed I wouldn’t count on them winning again either - they lost against PRS on appeal.

I do entirely agree about innovation and that exact copies are bad, and I’m not sure whether I feel the Deans are the right side of the line or not given the different headstocks, stringing arrangement etc - although the body shapes are pretty accurate copies - but oddly, I think the V and Z are more forgivable than the SG one which just seems unnecessary and actual less innovative. And I don’t see how the ES body shape isn’t public domain now, there have been countless copies since the 1960s which Gibson have never challenged.

Stuckfast

CavemanGrogg said:

 If it wasn't for IP and copyright laws, there would be no such thing as professional musicians, artists, or authors.  

I'm pretty sure there were professional musicians, artists and authors long before there were IP and copyright laws!

Winny_Pooh

Article is woefully shite.

Questions:

In which state was the case?
What options for appeal?
Did Gibson patent their folding headstock?
and
Why did Ross and Rachel have sex in the 2nd season but it took Mulder and Scully 11?

CavemanGrogg

Stuckfast said:

CavemanGrogg said:

 If it wasn't for IP and copyright laws, there would be no such thing as professional musicians, artists, or authors.  

I'm pretty sure there were professional musicians, artists and authors long before there were IP and copyright laws!

Who do you think got these laws passed in the first place?  Dickens and Poe, did a lot, and had a lot of influence during their introduction.

zerolight

The Article is confusing. On the one hand Gibson claim they ruling is in their favour and shapes can’t be used. On the other hand Dean are quoted as saying their damages to Gibson are $4000 total and that they are allowed to continue using those body and headstock shapes. If so, what did Gibson win?

fretmeister

TeleMaster said:

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts. 

Because IP law requires the owner to take prompt steps to maintain their rights, and Gibson should have done it 50 years ago.

There needs to be a risk of confusion at the point of sale. So a customer in a shop looking at the item, would they be confused as to what brand it was? No. Of course not. As per the case Gibson lost against PRS.


Lego couldn’t stop the sale of compatible bricks, and Phillips couldn’t stop others having circular razor heads.

This will go the same way in the end. Gibson left it 50 years too late, just as Fender did.

The world changed and other companies are offering similar products at higher quality but at lower prices and now they want to shut down the competition. They could have done that easily 50 years ago.

barnstorm

TeleMaster said:

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts.

My understanding FWIW:

Patents expire, so after a certain number of years there's nothing to stop you copying someone else's patented innovation.

Trademarks don't expire as long as the owner meets certain requirements. Have seen none of the paperwork relating to this spat, but based on previous cases Gibson will presumably have tried to demonstrate that the shapes are so closely associated with the brand that a consumer would likely believe any guitar of the same shape to be a Gibson product. That, to pretty much everyone but Gibson and its lawyers, is an awful stretch.

When they lost to PRS they memorably tried to argue that a SC was likely to be confused for a LP in a smoke-filled concert venue… but acknowledged that you'd have to be an idiot to confuse the two guitars in a shop.

fretmeister

Also, remember this has nothing to do with Gibson wanting to stop others making Flying V shapes.

Gibson aren’t suddenly going to make £200 worth versions. But they need those to exist so people who buy a £200 version will want to upgrade.

This is about forcing all other makers to pay Gibson a licensing fee so Gibson can actually make some money rather than them doing it the traditional way of making good products that sell in sufficient quantities.

That £200 version would be £250 if Gibson win in the end just so they get their cut.

Thats all this is.

Bigsby

TeleMaster said:

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts. 

These companies never really sought to protect their designs, largely because they thought the cheap copies weren't going to be serious competition for their products, but for other reasons too. Eventually the standards of the big brands slipped and the copies got better, and the brands realised they needed to do something - but a bit late in the day. At this point what tended to get protected were details such as headstock designs that clearly identified the brand, rather than the overall design, which in many cases was now a 'generic' guitar shape. You could argue the Les Paul always was.

I don't really have any sympathy for Gibson - they had no issue over ripping off the Stratocaster design themselves, and the most famous and blatant example of that was their 'Hendrix' Strat which went into production, and only got shelved when the news leaked and Gibson felt the backlash:



"We can copy Strats, but you can't copy Vs..."  -  **** off!

darthed1981

The guitar industry is a spectacularly naval-gazing, self-reverential and odd one isn't it?  I mean lets look at it objectively for a minute.

If you don't count the 80s (where everyone made "super-strats" - so still fucking strats really) the industry is basically a series of copies of about four main designs (the strat, tele, LP and ES) and about five or six less popular ones (SG, Fender offset types etc, the V, Explorer) and everyone just puts twists on those.

Amplifiers try to sound like one of a handful of "classic" sounds, pedals try to sound like one of about ten pedals, with slight variations to "fix" the originals.

All really in service of selling things to baby boomers who worship about ten bands from the 60s and 70s...

It isn't really surprising non-fans think all rock music sounds the same!  Now there are 60,000 songs uploaded to Spotify every day, about 59,900 of which will only be listened to by the artists mums and which are mostly either terrible or outstandingly mediocre.

The other challenge specifically for Gibson is that ignoring confirmation bias from everyone who buys one, top-end Asian manufacture is way ahead of them in bang-for-buck, and contrary to what PT Barnum didn't say, there will be a reducing number of suckers.

It's a weird mixture of being the industry's fault (marketing to us all we need that elusive "tone" of some old boring millionaire who hasn't made any good music for 40 years) and not (if they try anything genuinely new, guitarists will think it's shit because they are all trying to sound like a boring old millionaire who used the old stuff, because of course they did, it was all there was).

Gibson are after licensing fees for instruments which will stop selling as the boomer generation dies off anyway... really they should be trying to innovate and associate themselves more with artists who do sell. 

Fender have done this a lot better, as soon as a new act breaks big (new official forum punchbags (TM) Wet Leg for example) they suddenly have several brand new fender guitars, it seems.  They might struggle with the average LP as well (what's it weigh?  As much as a boat anchor... oh... but it's less if I take bits of it off... why the fuck would I do that? etc. etc.)

It all remains really very odd indeed.

prowla

Bigsby said:

TeleMaster said:

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts. 

These companies never really sought to protect their designs, largely because they thought the cheap copies weren't going to be serious competition for their products, but for other reasons too. Eventually the standards of the big brands slipped and the copies got better, and the brands realised they needed to do something - but a bit late in the day. At this point what tended to get protected were details such as headstock designs that clearly identified the brand, rather than the overall design, which in many cases was now a 'generic' guitar shape. You could argue the Les Paul always was.

I don't really have any sympathy for Gibson - they had no issue over ripping off the Stratocaster design themselves, and the most famous and blatant example of that was their 'Hendrix' Strat which went into production, and only got shelved when the news leaked and Gibson felt the backlash:



"We can copy Strats, but you can't copy Vs..."  -  **** off!

Whilst it is plainly hypocritical, the Strat body shape isn't trademarked; Fender only registered the headstock and that's why all of the Strat-a-likes have different shaped headstocks.

(I don't know if their use of the Hendrix image infringed a trademark, but the copyright on it would've already expired.)

prowla

fretmeister said:

TeleMaster said:

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts. 

Because IP law requires the owner to take prompt steps to maintain their rights, and Gibson should have done it 50 years ago.

There needs to be a risk of confusion at the point of sale. So a customer in a shop looking at the item, would they be confused as to what brand it was? No. Of course not. As per the case Gibson lost against PRS.


Lego couldn’t stop the sale of compatible bricks, and Phillips couldn’t stop others having circular razor heads.

This will go the same way in the end. Gibson left it 50 years too late, just as Fender did.

The world changed and other companies are offering similar products at higher quality but at lower prices and now they want to shut down the competition. They could have done that easily 50 years ago.

That's why RIC are seen as the nasty guys - they have to stay active to protect their IP.

I think that trademarks aren't retrospective, though, so things made before the registration aren't covered.

Personally, I'm not sure that trademarks should extend to design features, however...

Copyright and Patents are designed to give a company a period of time before others can emulate their product, which gives them a return for their innovation before the design/feature becomes part of the public good.

I'm not sure that protecting something in perpetuity is for the general good.

The net effect will be that US companies will be hamstrung, but the ruling won't apply to other countries.

Bigsby

prowla said:

Bigsby said:

TeleMaster said:

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts. 

These companies never really sought to protect their designs, largely because they thought the cheap copies weren't going to be serious competition for their products, but for other reasons too. Eventually the standards of the big brands slipped and the copies got better, and the brands realised they needed to do something - but a bit late in the day. At this point what tended to get protected were details such as headstock designs that clearly identified the brand, rather than the overall design, which in many cases was now a 'generic' guitar shape. You could argue the Les Paul always was.

I don't really have any sympathy for Gibson - they had no issue over ripping off the Stratocaster design themselves, and the most famous and blatant example of that was their 'Hendrix' Strat which went into production, and only got shelved when the news leaked and Gibson felt the backlash:



"We can copy Strats, but you can't copy Vs..."  -  **** off!

Whilst it is plainly hypocritical, the Strat body shape isn't trademarked; Fender only registered the headstock and that's why all of the Strat-a-likes have different shaped headstocks.

(I don't know if their use of the Hendrix image infringed a trademark, but the copyright on it would've already expired.)

No, the copyright would NOT have expired on any image of Hendrix (no photos of him are that old) - and in case you don't know it, that particular image/graphic is the one used by Experience Hendrix. These guitars were actually licensed by the Hendrix estate, but of course, they were not licensed by Fender who actually made his Strats! This is what caused the backlash on that particular release. For guitarists everywhere, a Gibson made 'Hendrix Strat' was a bad joke/step too far.

But clearly Gibson didn't think so until the news leaked out.

fretmeister

prowla said:

fretmeister said:

TeleMaster said:

I don't see how a company can copy a design of a company, sell a product, and think they can get away with that. I have no opinion either way really, and I have no idea of the law, but it seems a bit open and shut to me. If anyone wants to explain why it's even a debate I'd love to hear the facts. 

Because IP law requires the owner to take prompt steps to maintain their rights, and Gibson should have done it 50 years ago.

There needs to be a risk of confusion at the point of sale. So a customer in a shop looking at the item, would they be confused as to what brand it was? No. Of course not. As per the case Gibson lost against PRS.


Lego couldn’t stop the sale of compatible bricks, and Phillips couldn’t stop others having circular razor heads.

This will go the same way in the end. Gibson left it 50 years too late, just as Fender did.

The world changed and other companies are offering similar products at higher quality but at lower prices and now they want to shut down the competition. They could have done that easily 50 years ago.

That's why RIC are seen as the nasty guys - they have to stay active to protect their IP.

I think that trademarks aren't retrospective, though, so things made before the registration aren't covered.

Personally, I'm not sure that trademarks should extend to design features, however...

Copyright and Patents are designed to give a company a period of time before others can emulate their product, which gives them a return for their innovation before the design/feature becomes part of the public good.

I'm not sure that protecting something in perpetuity is for the general good.

The net effect will be that US companies will be hamstrung, but the ruling won't apply to other countries.

John Hall has retired now (to Wales!) so it will be interesting to see what happens there.

I never had a problem with his general approach, he’s done exactly the right thing to protect his IP.

He’s also smart enough to know he could never shut down a Chinese factory making copies so he made sure it was difficult to sell them anywhere else.

Several bass forums got lawyers letters if they didn’t ban fake Rickies. The bit that made him look like an arse was him demanding that if a fake Ricky was listed it would have to be removed in under 30 mins!

I think he assumed bass forums had a 24 hour a day staff!

Basschat got so many letters that they just banned the sale of all Ricky shaped objects, even the real ones.