Fender loses suit to trademark all tele, strat shape guitars

Darryl Hattenhauer · Post by **Darryl Hattenhauer** » 9 Apr 2009 8:37 pm

http://www.azcentral.com/community/scot ... r0410.html

Only fat cats like Fender have the moolah for such a monopolistic venture. There's no practical way to determine what is and what isn't a tele, strat, or p-bass shape. IMHO, it would be like Ford holding rights to anything that looks like a car.

Fender's claim that they want to stop forgeries seems ironic. Like Gibson with Epiphone, Fender bought great old companies like Gretsch, Guild, and Orpheum, then stopped the American production of many of the real quality instruments formerly made by those companies and started putting the names "Gretsch," "Guild," "and "Orpheum" on foreign-made goods often of lower quality. So it seems to me that Fender, in effect, is a monopoly that closes down the competition and sells forgeries of those defunct companies. The small companies that have come along since the 1980s are making instrument styles originated by Fender (and Martin and Gibson) better and cheaper. I suspect that it is such small domestic makers that Fender really wants to stop.

All the looney opinion of one who doesn't really know squat about law and business. Other opinions welcome. I'd like to be convinced that I'm not right.

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 10 Apr 2009 2:22 am

If they'd done this years ago they might have gotten away with it so I'm glad they didn't. I've had several Fender Stratocasters over the years but my favorite Strat style guitar is a MIJ Schecter Mercury which is exactly like the one Mark Knopfler played when Dire Straits first came out. IMHO it beats any MIA Fender Strat I've ever played so I'm hanging onto it..........JH in Va.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 10 Apr 2009 3:04 am

In all fairness to Fender, they were one of the big two that survived,barely, Gretsch and Guild were poorly managed and went under . Fender , I believe CBS at the time, bought them and had they not, both of those companies would have been in the history books.

Quite frankly if I designed the Tele body and the Strat body, of which there isn't anyone breathing that doesn't know the design heritage, I would have filed copyright for the body shape and design decades back. These are the 2 most copied and manufactured electric guitars in the history of the world.

They were not asking for the design patent for electric guitar, just Leo's.

I see there side very well. sorry.

regarding Ford, uhh, they do have patents on cars like Mustang etc so GM could not make a replica Mustang.

There case is not if they make a better Telecaster or Strat , it's that Fender designed those body shapes and, uhh, they did !

Problem is they waited too long, although this has been in the courts for 6 years. This should have been done in the 80's.

You do know that in most states, if someone uses a piece of your land or moves on to it and you don't formally ask them to leave, after 10 years they can claim ownership of that parcel they have been using or living on. I guess that's the principle that the judge used in this case.

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Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 10 Apr 2009 8:10 am

Quite frankly if I designed the Tele body and the Strat body, of which there isn't anyone breathing that doesn't know the design heritage, I would have filed copyright for the body shape and design decades back. These are the 2 most copied and manufactured electric guitars in the history of the world.

Your statement gives away the reality of this situation - the shape, materials, and other features of the body, neck, headstock and other physical features are design elements, not trademarks. They aren't and shouldn't be subject to trademark laws, but are and should be subject to patent laws. The point about patent law is that there is a time limit to patent protection on a design.

The Fender logo is a trademark. Everything else about the guitars are design elements.

I personally think they made a mistake pursuing this. I think it opens up Pandora's box for them - how are the neck and headstock shape any different than the body shape? I have always argued this line, and I think they just opened themselves up for copiers to now make exact copies, with the exception of the Fender logo, which they will not be able to legally use, of course.

I love Fender guitars, but the idea that the current Fender company (which had absolutely nothing to do with these designs) can stop everyone else in the world from using Leo's designs 60+ years after they were designed and 30+ years after the applicable patents expired is ridiculous.

If this lawsuit was valid, then everybody who clones old Fender amps (minus the trademark Fender logo) would also be infringing on those designs - which, btw, used design ideas patented much earlier by Western Electric. You can't have it both ways. Once a patent expires, anybody can use the designs covered by it.

IMHO.

Ben Elder · Post by **Ben Elder** » 13 Apr 2009 7:50 pm

Fender , I believe CBS at the time, bought them and had they not, both of those companies would have been in the history books.

Not to divert the legal discourse, but CBS all but ran Fender into the ground between 1965 and 1985. A management team of Bill Schultz, and I believe, other Yamaha executives, bought the shell of what had once had been Fender and built it up spectacularly given the sorry condition in which they acquired it. The Gretsch and Guild acquisitions by Fender were well into the Schultz Era--perhaps 21st Century for Gretsch and '90s for Guild--after Fender had become a major player again.

[Written from the Videotape Library at CBS Television City on a languid Monday night, 4/13/09.]

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 17 Apr 2009 6:18 pm

Yeah, they had to lose. If you could sue for copying a body shape, I reckon Mae West would'a sued Mamie Van Doren, Jayne Mansfield, and Marilyn Monroe!

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 18 Apr 2009 12:41 am

CBS may very well have run Fender into the ground but that's not the issue, they are still in business under there own name of which others are not.

Drew Howard · Post by **Drew Howard** » 18 Apr 2009 7:05 am

Seeing as how corporate America has extended copyright on many songs into perpetuity, rendering public domain on songs post-20's is all but dead, I'm surprised at how Fender blew this one. If they had Gibson's squad of lawyers, things might have turned out differently.

Don Wright · Post by **Don Wright** » 18 Apr 2009 1:51 pm

If I'm not mistaken, Gibson's squad of lawyers recently suffered a bitter loss to PRS in regard to body design issues. Also, apparently Fender doesn't actually own Gretsch Guitars. I was under that impression too until I was informed by a Gretsch employee at the recent NAMM show that Fender owns the sales and distribution rights but that Fred Gretsch & family retain ownership of Gretsch Guitars. Gretsch Drums are also Gretsch family owned but they are distributed through Kaman Music (I think). Fender stopped production of all Guild electrics a couple of years back and then merged the Guild acoustic factory with the Tacoma Guitar Company factory in Washington when they acquired Tacoma. It has now reached the point where just about the only old line major American electric guitar brand not owned (or controlled) by Fender (or by Gibson) is the quirky, fiercely independent and family-owned Rickenbacker in Santa Ana, California. And Rickenbacker is more-than-eager to sue any guitar maker who makes anything even close to looking like a Ric. They do this under the area of trademark law known as "trade dress"

Mark Durante · Post by **Mark Durante** » 19 Apr 2009 7:37 am

On 29 October 2007 the Kaman Corporation announced that it had agreed to a definitive deal to sell its subsidiary, the Kaman Music Corporation, to Fender Musical Instruments Corporation for $117 million.

Paul Norman · Post by **Paul Norman** » 22 Apr 2009 2:44 pm

I think the body shapes that Donny Hinson mentions
are a lot more exciting than Fenders.

Eric Jaeger · Post by **Eric Jaeger** » 30 Apr 2009 1:52 pm

The original intent of trademark and copyright law was *not* to keep ideas out of public domain forever, just to allow a reasonable period for someone to profit from an idea.

It's now referred to as "the Mickey Mouse" provision, since the period keeps getting extended to keep - you guessed it - Mickey out of the public domain.

Considering that the Fender headstock is a clear derivative of the Bigsby headstock (I know Leo says not, but one look is enough to convince you that's not accurate), Fender has a lot of gall trying to protect it.

-eric