Gibson files to cancel DiMarzio’s PAF and Double Cream pickup trademarks

[zionstrat]

Now there's something I never thought of. Whatever Gibson was trying to patent they clearly were not awarded it.

What's so weird about this is, 70 years later we act like Gibson invented humbuckers... But Ray Butts was at least a year ahead at Gretch and Chet Atkins was seen playing filtertrons at least a year before Gibson produced anything.

Gretch kind of bowed out as Seth Lover took over the concept... In reality, it does appear that both HBs were developed separately, however, Gretch was almost certainly well ahead of the game and I wish they got more credit.

As far as payback, my students play a lot more Jets than they do Les Paul's

 

[Inflames626]

What's so weird about this is, 70 years later we act like Gibson invented humbuckers... But Ray Butts was at least a year ahead at Gretch and Chet Atkins was seen playing filtertrons at least a year before Gibson produced anything.

Gretch kind of bowed out as Seth Lover took over the concept... In reality, it does appear that both HBs were developed separately, however, Gretch was almost certainly well ahead of the game and I wish they got more credit.

As far as payback, my students play a lot more Jets than they do Les Paul's

By this logic, shouldn't Rickenbacker get as much credit for early bass as Leo Fender's P?

 

[beaubrummels]

Patents expire, trademarks do not.

Unless you fail to use the trademark for a certain number of consecutive years (I can't remember the terms, it's like 2 years or something?). Then it goes back into the public domain.

 

[beaubrummels]

PAF still seems like too general a term to trademark even if it is associated with Gibson. By this logic someone could try and trademark the term patent pending.

Applied for sounds a little silly. Okay. It's applied for. What now? Is it in force?

You can trademark acronyms (or non-word letter sequences), same way companies like JBL, ESP, FGN, EVH, NBC, ABC, CBS, HBO, SHO, MAX, IBM, SAP, HP, etc. trademark theirs as their brand. You typically can't trademark commonly-used language and phrases that already have meaning to the general public before you co-opted it for your business.

Patent Applied For refers to the period between Gibson/Seth Lover filing the humbucker patent and when the patent protection was finally granted. So as far as Gibson pickups goes, the phrase is heavily associated with their products made during that period. After the patent was granted, Gibson began putting stickers with the patent number on the baseplates of their pickups, and later stamped the patent number directly on the baseplates - a period commonly known as T-Tops because of a change in the bobbin tooling at about the same time. (Trivia, the actual patent number they stamped was for a bridge system not for humbucker pickups. They were hoping to reduce instances of other companies infringing on their patent by obfuscating what the actual patent was for their pickups.).

A patent lasts for 50 years and is renewable by the patent owner. AFAIK the Gibson/Lover humbucker patent is still in force.

 

[Inflames626]

You can trademark acronyms (or non-word letter sequences), same way companies like JBL, ESP, FGN, EVH, NBC, ABC, CBS, HBO, SHO, MAX, IBM, SAP, HP, etc. trademark theirs as their brand. You typically can't trademark commonly-used language and phrases that already have meaning to the general public before you co-opted it for your business.

Patent Applied For refers to the period between Gibson/Seth Lover filing the humbucker patent and when the patent protection was finally granted. So as far as Gibson pickups goes, the phrase is heavily associated with their products made during that period. After the patent was granted, Gibson began putting stickers with the patent number on the baseplates of their pickups, and later stamped the patent number directly on the baseplates - a period commonly known as T-Tops because of a change in the bobbin tooling at about the same time. (Trivia, the actual patent number they stamped was for a bridge system not for humbucker pickups. They were hoping to reduce instances of other companies infringing on their patent by obfuscating what the actual patent was for their pickups.).

A patent lasts for 50 years and is renewable by the patent owner. AFAIK the Gibson/Lover humbucker patent is still in force.

Great answer. Thank you.

If the humbucker patent was approved in 1959, it would have lasted until 2009. When aftermarket pickups started up in the 70s, how did they get around this without paying a royalty to Gibson? I assume it was because each humbucker design is slightly different. I'm just now sure how broadly the humbucker design is going to be interpreted as a proprietary Gibson design.

 

[beaubrummels]

Great answer. Thank you.

If the humbucker patent was approved in 1959, it would have lasted until 2009. When aftermarket pickups started up in the 70s, how did they get around this without paying a royalty to Gibson? I assume it was because each humbucker design is slightly different. I'm just now sure how broadly the humbucker design is going to be interpreted as a proprietary Gibson design.

Gibson never claimed the color of the plastic bobbin as a material, functional part of their pickups in the patent. They actually never intended the public to see the bobbins at all as new instruments were always issued with covers on the pickups. The various colors, black, white, off-white, were the result of supply issues, not a functional, manufacturing or branding decision.

Gibson only owns Gibson's Seth Lover humbucker design. Each inventor / company owns their own designs; Gretsch Filtertrons, Fender/Seth Lover Wide Range Humbuckers, Bill Lawrence blade designs, etc. You can't patent someone else's invention, unless they can't prove they invented it first.

 

[Inflames626]

So it looks like if Gibson didn't trademark the term PAF, but DiMarzio did, that kind of leaves Gibson SOL? Meanwhile DiMarzio can claim the double cream because the bobbin was something Gibson didn't claim it as an inherent part of the pickup patent that deserved its own trademark?

 

[marcello252]

the deeper your explanation is, the weirder it gets , it's even weirder than I thought

 

[Inflames626]

the deeper your explanation is, the weirder it gets , it's even weirder than I thought

The deeper it gets, the more reasons I see why lawyers could argue over it.

PAF is a trademark. But not P.A.F.?

Such split hairs are what law is all about.

 

[Inflames626]

Gibson never claimed the color of the plastic bobbin as a material, functional part of their pickups in the patent. They actually never intended the public to see the bobbins at all as new instruments were always issued with covers on the pickups. The various colors, black, white, off-white, were the result of supply issues, not a functional, manufacturing or branding decision.

Gibson only owns Gibson's Seth Lover humbucker design. Each inventor / company owns their own designs; Gretsch Filtertrons, Fender/Seth Lover Wide Range Humbuckers, Bill Lawrence blade designs, etc. You can't patent someone else's invention, unless they can't prove they invented it first.

Also this is great because I thought what Gibson was trying to patent was the very broad concept of two coils wound in opposite directions to cancel hum, so anything that even tried to wind coils in opposite directions to cancel hum in ANY way with ANY magnet would be considered patent infringement.

 

[beaubrummels]

Also this is great because I thought what Gibson was trying to patent was the very broad concept of two coils wound in opposite directions to cancel hum, so anything that even tried to wind coils in opposite directions to cancel hum in ANY way with ANY magnet would be considered patent infringement.

Patents are typically very narrow. You can't make broad claims like that, unless you are the very first ever to invent something. Quite often inventions are improvements on existing things, so you can only patent the part that is novel and new. As more people innovate after the first, the patents have to get narrower and narrower. As my attorney described it to me: The first guy can patent a chair. The next guy can patent a red chair, but the chair part is listed as "prior art". The next guy can patent a red chair with art deco styling, but the red chair part is described as "prior art", and so on.

Also, Gibson is not suing to patent anything, they are suing to vacate DiMazrio's trademark claim and put the term "PAF" and double cream humbucker bobbins back into the public domain.

 

[Inflames626]

Patents are typically very narrow. You can't make broad claims like that, unless you are the very first ever to invent something. Quite often inventions are improvements on existing things, so you can only patent the part that is novel and new. As more people innovate after the first, the patents have to get narrower and narrower. As my attorney described it to me: The first guy can patent a chair. The next guy can patent a red chair, but the chair part is listed as "prior art". The next guy can patent a red chair with art deco styling, but the red chair part is described as "prior art", and so on.

Also, Gibson is not suing to patent anything, they are suing to vacate DiMazrio's trademark claim and put the term "PAF" and double cream humbucker bobbins back into the public domain.

Once again, thank you for the excellent answer. Since Gibson was one of the first to do the humbucker back in the 50s and patents last 50 years (I thought it was the inventor's life plus 70 years but I think I am thinking of copyright), I thought maybe they would still try to claim some legitimacy over the entire humbucker design broadly.

Also, and I may be paranoid here, but the reason why I'm down on Gibson suing DiMarzio is I feel like they will try to make DiMarzio vacate the trademark, then Gibson will try to reestablish their trademark over what DiMarzio vacates. Slippery slope kind of thing.

And I thought perhaps by leveraging ownership of "PAF" as a trademark, they could say, "We originally developed it. We deserve the trademark back. Oh and the patent too."

Of course there's no way you could get every non-Gibson humbucker off the market. Gibson knows this. So the idea would be for Gibson to get a passive revenue stream by making every other humbucker maker pay a small licensing fee for using the design.

So it isn't that I thought Gibson was suing DiMarzio for the patent. But I was suspicious that might be Gibson's eventual aim.

 

[Mincer]

Gibson just won a case against Dean, so I wonder how they will do here.

 

[donaldr]

Dimarzio Double Cream humbucker trademark is legit and I hope they will Win over Gibson.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

PAF still seems like too general a term to trademark even if it is associated with Gibson. By this logic someone could try and trademark the term patent pending.

Applied for sounds a little silly. Okay. It's applied for. What now? Is it in force?

I wasn't saying I think Gibson should own the term, only that IMO DiMarzio should not be allowed exclusive use of it.

 

[zionstrat]

By this logic, shouldn't Rickenbacker get as much credit for early bass as Leo Fender's P?

The frying Pan certainly should!

 

[uOpt]

Once again, thank you for the excellent answer. Since Gibson was one of the first to do the humbucker back in the 50s and patents last 50 years (I thought it was the inventor's life plus 70 years but I think I am thinking of copyright), I thought maybe they would still try to claim some legitimacy over the entire humbucke

Patents have 20 years to expiration. From the moment they are filed, not when they are granted.

Speaking of patents, is the patent on uneven humbuckers made from 2 coils with the same wind number but different wire thickness still in effect?

 

[jeremy]

i believe dimarzio's patent for dual resonance has expired. i wound a pup years ago with 5500 turns of [NODE="42"]A5 antiquity & Custom Timbucker neck[/NODE] and [NODE="43"]Playing Tips!![/NODE] for a guy and he loved it. i wasnt worried about dimarzio coming after a guy winding a dozen or two pups a year in his basement

 

[Inflames626]

Patents have 20 years to expiration. From the moment they are filed, not when they are granted.

Speaking of patents, is the patent on uneven humbuckers made from 2 coils with the same wind number but different wire thickness still in effect?

20 years from filing date seems a little unfair. As complex as patent law is, it could take years to grant a patent number. And if a patent can be defended while filed even when not granted, what is the point of granting a patent if protections already exist when filed?

For the Floyd Rose bridge, FR's site says it was patented in 1979, but as of 2005 the patent is still licensed to others for use.

https://www.floydrose.com/pages/abo...ly work with Fernandes,Halen often came in to

 

[beaubrummels]

Patents are renewable. You just renew.

The timing of all of them has to do with the expected use.

Copyright is a unique work, a song, a novel, a painting, so it has the longest protection.

Patent is for a process or product, theory being once you've made your money off it, there should be an opportunity for it to enter the public domain and become ubiquitous, benefiting all. But you can renew if you are still producing the product or using that proprietary process.

Trademarks are any identifying characteristic of your brand, often common things like words, phrases, colors, shapes; so if you don't use it, you lost it pretty fast. The thinking being other people should be allowed to use common elements, acronyms, etc., so we shouldn't allow one business to monopolize the use of common things.