Gibson's landmark court victory changes the course of guitar building history

Morphine said:
I often hear that the DGT is the PRS to get if you want a Les Paul tone. Even over all their Singlecut offerings.
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I've had a DGT and a 594 for the last couple of years. The 594 is more like a Les Paul (warts and all), but I greatly prefer the DGT.
 
Music and musicians can be an interesting group of folks. But my take as being in the business and the real world at the same time is it always seemed weird to me you could just copy a LP or a V or whatever. In any other industry you really can't get away with it. You can't just copy a pair of Levi's, sell, market them and say you waited too long to file against us.

Lot of things happen and sometimes there are a variety of reasons why folks or groups don't take immediate action. I don't think anyone could predict or tell why for sure. That is up to the one to who is filing, in this case Gibson.

The Gibson company does odd things and they have a history of being an odd company and usually this oddness gets even more so as the years pass lol. But overall the case probably not a bad thing overall and it protect lots of folks in the industry - even though Gibson's execution on most things, including this one is again, odd and not pretty, to say the least.

As an aside, I was Gibson endorser for a long time - my original logo had the SJ I got from them among so many others. And as it goes - the guitars themselves are odd, flawed, frustrating and completely awesome all at the same time. That is Gibson, which explains all the reasons and events of their history. They are perfectly messed up!

It also explains why there are an evolution of the other guitar companies. Heritage Guitars - which are outstanding even after the sell out and PRS which are also flawless. To me these are not copies as much as they are "improvements" and "advancements".

I think the Dean Guitars are not exact copies as well but they are closer to the original that others and top that with Dean is in a messed up company right now with the former owner's son is causing havoc. I would guess this could have been ironed out - maybe, but again Gibson = odd and you can never predict what they are going to do.

Protection of design is a good thing, mostly, and it helps protect artists in world where this sadly very little protection of your "product."

One last point now my relationship is with FMIC (Charvel) and it is also very interesting how this current company handles issues of the same sort lol!
 
fractalz said:
What about:

https://www.adkguitar.com/blogs/news/what-do-we-mean-when-we-say-lawsuit-guitar
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Gibson has had some decided in their favor over the years which is why I said it's not as simple as black and white. There are some arguments I can agree with Gibson on and others I think are ridiculous.

As someone mentioned Levi's, sure you cannot copy Levi's jeans exactly and sell them. But how many different brands are there of jeans that are 90% the same with a different tag and slight variations on the stitchings and back pocket shapes? Dozens? Hundreds? Should Levi's be able to say, "hey, not fair, only we can make jeans!" I don't believe so. Some might think that's fair. Fair enough.

What's interesting to note is Gibsons recent complaints with various companies don't appear to involve anything with the LP shape cause Gibson tried to trademark that one a long time ago and failed as they waited too long. Yet in this instance, waiting too long doesn't seem apply. As I said, hard to follow precedent as it's all over the map.
 
fractalz said:
My point is that if I invent something on my dime, you shouldn't be able to copy it for free.

The IP point is clearer if you reverse the players. Should a company with massive resources like Gibson be able to copy a cool new design from a scrappy startup?
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You mean like Gibson did?

The Bigsby from the late 40s.
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And look, I own a closet full of vintage Gibsons. I love them.
 
I thought this recent win in court did not include the Les Paul shape. That is probably indeed a fairly generic shape. Not sure why many here in this thread talk about Les Paul, PRS Single Cut, and ESP Eclipse.

However the Explorer and V are definitely not generic.

Just quoting that article, I did not research more than that:

Additionally, it was decided that Dean violated a number of Gibson trademarks – specifically, the Flying V, Explorer, and SG electric guitar body shapes, along with the Hummingbird acoustic guitar name.
 
sprint said:
Love my Gibson SG!👍👍👍
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My Gibsons are my best/favourite guitars. It's fun to bag on Gibson. I get it. I agree with them
being managed by some shitty/shoddy corporate practices. But I have owned (and still own) a
lot of other guitars in the past and between my '61 RI SG, 335, and Les Paul they can't be beat.

Granted, I don't do the weedly-weedly shred thing---which is something Gibsons have never been
known for anyways.
 
Henry said:
I thought this recent win in court did not include the Les Paul shape. That is probably indeed a fairly generic shape. Not sure why many here in this thread talk about Les Paul, PRS Single Cut, and ESP Eclipse.

However the Explorer and V are definitely not generic.

Just quoting that article, I did not research more than that:

Additionally, it was decided that Dean violated a number of Gibson trademarks – specifically, the Flying V, Explorer, and SG electric guitar body shapes, along with the Hummingbird acoustic guitar name.
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Not sure why, since it was not stated, but Hard Luck Kings altered their 24 fret Explorer-esque guitar a while back and blew out remaining stock for $99 each. Cheap, but a good guitar.
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May someday get one of those nut cover thingies for it to raise the action for slide....
 
Design patents seem really sketchy at times. I mean, if you can look at something and immediately think it's an iPhone, but it isn't one, then there is probably a case. But at one point do corners rounded at a different radius make it not an iPhone shape. Same with guitars.

There are definitely a lot of Explorer-esqe guitars out there, but when does it stop being one? Maybe the body could be similar, but a Dean headstock is REALLY distinctive. There is no way you're going to ever mistake a Dean V from a Gibson V.
 
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