Posted on 04/05/2009 2:09:12 PM PDT by Liberty Valance
An attempt by Fender to trademark the body shapes of its Stratocaster, Telecaster and Precision models has been rejected. As reported by MusicRadar.com, in denying Fender's application, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office wrote:
"The applicant has not established acquired distinctiveness such that these two-dimensional outlines of guitar bodies, standing alone, serve to indicate source. The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that these configurations are so common in the industry that they cannot identify source."
In a 75-page document, the Appeal Board went on to say "it does not appear that third parties intended to copy applicant's guitar shapes for the purpose of confusing consumers and passing off applicant's guitar shapes as their own."
Litigation involving the trademark issue has been going on for five years. In the dispute, Fender had alleged that Stuart Spector Designs, US Music Corporation, ESP Guitars, Sadowsky Guitars, Lakland Musical Instruments, Peavey Electronics, Warmoth Guitar Products, Schecter Guitar Research, Michael Tobias, as well as other companies, had infringed on its designs.
(Excerpt) Read more at gibson.com ...
Why isn’t the Gibson name on it then?
What kind of nut does the Signature Jeff Beck have?
Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden has a gold top Les Paul. Things probably worth over $100,000, even though he’s had to remove some wood to switch out pickups.
I could look at my friends gold top cross eyed and get a great sound. I love that guitar!
Being a lefty makes it pretty difficult to get my hands on a good guitar. On top of that, I haven’t had a chance to crank any amps yet. Music shop I go to has a 5 watt tube amp that I wanna try on 8 or so, see if I could get some good saturation out of it.
I’d also like to put my Strat through it, whenever I get it back...
I dunno. I think the EXACT shape of the fender stratocaster is a little different. Im not a guitar player so i don’t get as picky about these things. But the generic american shape of the modern guitar was invented by gibson. The fender telecaster is the generic american shape. The gibson super 400 came out in the early 1930s, while the telecaster came out in about 1950, the stratocaster 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Super400ces.png
telecaster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FenderTelecaster.jpg
In addition to those is the gibson les paul(1952), and the gibson SG(1961)
Gibson was first.
I don’t think it has to do with solid-body, more of the shape.
Ok, well I don’t know exactly what they mean by the “shape”. I assume they meant assymetrical, having the scratch guard, and lacking the large round hole in the center...in other words NOT like the classic spanish guitar. Using that as the definition, gibson guitar company was the first to invent that shape.
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