Need a double-cream Bridge Pickup. Recommendations?
- Thread starter NoelH
- Start date
Well, just confirmed with Dennis at SD. No can do. Bare Knuckle gets away with double cream because they're in England, and the trade mark doesn't apply. And he also said 'Parchment" is a color they also have but it's much closer to white. Argh, freakin' Larry Dimarzio. Makes me NOT want to buy his products. Now I'm seriously looking at the Steve Stevens.
PFDarkside
of the Forum
Can anyone explain this? I can’t bottle “coke” in Laos then sell it in the US. I’d understand if Bare Knuckle (or anyone else) could sell double cream in a country where the trademark isn’t registered, but why or how can they sell in the US?
I don't want to go through building one. I'm ok with a soldering iron when comes to say, mounting speakers. But not a pickup.
Just checked. I can get the Rebel Yell in double cream. $172. Geez, better be worth it.
So now I'm down to: Bare Knuckles Rebel Yell (have to wait till after the Holidays), or Wilde L500XL. I would have considered the Super II or the Morse, but now I'll so pi$$ed I don't think I'll ever buy another Dimarzio. Never had much use for them anyway.
Just checked. I can get the Rebel Yell in double cream. $172. Geez, better be worth it.
So now I'm down to: Bare Knuckles Rebel Yell (have to wait till after the Holidays), or Wilde L500XL. I would have considered the Super II or the Morse, but now I'll so pi$$ed I don't think I'll ever buy another Dimarzio. Never had much use for them anyway.
DavidRavenMoon
New member
Coke is an international trademark.
If you look at Japanese guitars in the 80s, lots of them had double cream pickups to cash in on the popularity of the Super Distortion. Schaller also made DiMarzio copies.
DiMarzio was doing it first. (And before people point out the double cream PAFs from the past; 1) Gibson didn’t make them without covers, 2) they weren’t double cream intentionally, and 3) they didn’t get a trademark on double cream pickups.)
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ItsaBass
New member
Yup. The Gibson did it first argument is total nonsense. It was not a deliberate design element, and it in no way indicated a mark of the brand – i.e. the very definition of a trademark.
DiMarzio made double creams on purpose, as a design element. When one saw a double cream pickup in the '70s and '80s, the only thing anybody thought was "DiMarzio" – whether it actually was or not. A certain aesthetic marker, placed there by design, solely for aesthetic purposes, that becomes synonymous with your brand out in the market, whether you intended for it to do so or not, is legally enough to establish an acquired trademark. It doesn't matter whether other companies were doing the same. It only matters what the market sees when they see that certain aesthetic design. And its perception was: cream = DiMarzio, almost universally.
FWIW, Duncan can make double parchment, and it not only looks better than double cream IMO, but it looks more accurate to what the double "cream" Gibson bobbins on PAFs originally looked like anyhow...and it will natural age to double cream, which looks 100X better than a from-the-factory double cream pickup. So there's really nothing to complain about; DiMarzio was within their rights, and you have a better option anyhow with double parchment.
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donaldr
New member
It always made sense to me. Don't understand why Gibson and Fender never have done the same with their body/headstock shapes.
It's a stupid piece of plastic.Every pickup company uses the same basic platform. Has an auto company copyritten a color? OK, yeah, there's "Fire Engine Red" and "Ferrari Red", and "Torch Red", ect. but no auto company owns a copyright on "Red".Sorry, it may have been a clever business move, but that doesn't make it right. Whatever. I now have it down to two. Given the price of the Bare Knuckle, if I want to try it, I'll have to wait till January. Thanks all.
superpete
Active member
this argument pops up here all the time...but to answer your question, yes, companies trademark colors all the time. ups with brown, john deere with green, caterpillar with yellow, target with red, tiffany with blue, etc etc etc.
superpete
Active member
they waited too long and didn't enforce their body shapes for too long, and now they are essentially public domain. the headstocks they do have trademarks on.
PFDarkside
of the Forum
That doesn’t explain why a company can infringe on that trademark of they are built outside the US. I understand they may only own the trademark in the US leaving the rest of the world open, but how does it work here? Or is BKP just too small of a fish still? Same with like Throbak, etc.?
Guitar. Matters.
beaubrummels
Well-known member
Trademark and patent law is by individual country. There isn't such a thing as a global patent (trademark, I'm not sure, I assume it's the same) - you have to apply and win in each country individually. If you build and sell in a particular country, you only need to have the right to in that country. As long as BKP doesn't have any offices in the U.S., they can build and sell from another country where U.S. trademarks and patents have no legal meaning.
Demanic
PenultimateTone Member
donaldr
New member
Well explained in post #29