Gibson Loses Its Firebird Guitar Body Shape Trademark in The EU

[TheX]

Gibson never seems to want to make what I want.

Ten years ago I wanted a neck-through Les Paul with a 16" radius, 1 3/4" nut width, a Floyd, a "reversed quad" of controls (so that I had a volume knob near the bridge/bridge pickup), an ebony fretboard with real shell inlays, jumbo frets, tight-flame top, white custom-type binding, and a NON-nitrocellulose finish. These days I want the same thing, but with a 25.5" scale and a single-coil size neck pickup. None of this stuff is beyond their technical expertise, but they won't even consider it for a made to order guitar.

It gets worse. Gibson may never get around to making an 8-string headless with a multi-scale fretboard, and that's probably going to be my next guitar.

Gibson doesn't get "innovate." I think the last 7-string I saw them attempt was a 24.75" Explorer (or similar), and that one disappeared quickly.

The last CEO was really distressed when his "innovative" guitars (with the robot tuners and a pedalboard tacked onto the guitar) didn't find traction, and he called his customers Luddites. Oh well.

The guitars you want aren't Gibson's, so you have to buy elsewhere. Not sure why anyone would expect Gibson to build every guitar that every player might want. Makes no sense.

 

[CB91710]

The guitars you want aren't Gibson's, so you have to buy elsewhere. Not sure why anyone would expect Gibson to build every guitar that every player might want. Makes no sense.

Yep.
The Fender Custom Shop will do some pretty impressive stuff, but other than the oddball builds that they will do for NAMM, they are still going to be effectively Fender guitars at heart.
Might be a Tele body with two humbuckers and LP style controls, or it might be a Strat body with Jazzmaster electronics...
But neither Fender nor Gibson are going to make a Steinberger/BC Rich hybrid.
The Custom Shop models are built from the ground-up, but they still use production templates for the body.

But I hear there's a guy up in the High Desert who can do that funky one-off custom stuff

 

[dspelman]

The guitars you want aren't Gibson's, so you have to buy elsewhere. Not sure why anyone would expect Gibson to build every guitar that every player might want. Makes no sense.

Obviously. And I do buy elsewhere.
But almost every one of those requests are items that Gibson has put on a Les Paul or one of their guitars at one time or another. I've had a Gibson executive scream at me (after quite a few beers) that their customers can't abide "innovation." In theory, a PowerTune isn't a Gibson. Nor is that horrendous conglomeration that they stuck in a Firechicken some years ago.

They did, however, build a 27" scale guitar and a 10% larger body LP. They built a 25.5" scale LP and put the same scale on the night hawk and on the MIII. They built an LP with a reversed quad of controls. They've built LPs with Floyds. And Kahlers. They've built neck-through guitars. They've built them with Sustainers and mids cuts and bass cuts. They've built HSS Les Pauls with five-ways and miniswitches. They've built them with a "tilted" humbucker coupled with a single coil and a mini humbucker. Those guitars are (or were) Gibsons.

 

[martin H]

but, but.....The Gibson lawyers won this one. Lawyers 2 Gibson 0

That's how we always set it up. . No-one is stupid enough t take a case like this on " no win no fee" contingency!

 

[martin H]

"Interestingly, the EUIPO put forward the idea in its judgment that even though guitarists may be able to identify a guitar's outline, it's more relevant whether a non-player can. And it doesn't consider this to be the case for the Firebird."

I wonder how this logic would apply to all trademarks. Any non-driver can use the Mercedes Benz logo? Any non-burger eater can use the Golden Arches?

it's an interesting question ,but the logic works both ways.

If you were to use the "guitar player" standard, I woudl have to ask the following question.

How many of you sincerely believe that any instrument you see that is shaped like a V or a Firebird must be a Gibson product? Be honest. I'm not sure the decision would be any different if the "guitar player" standard was used.

The real question is WHY no-one here believes that every instrument shaped like a V or a Firebird must be a Gibson product. Because everyone knows there are a bunch of manufacturers using the shape. The trademark has become diluted and generic long before Gibson tried to enforce it

 

[martin H]

Thank you, you can go back to sleep now.

Or how about you follow the rules....

 

[flyingvguy]

i build les paul's. trade and sell them. never got any legal letters of cease and desist from gibson or fender. it's time for them to let it go. they are losing the battle and by the way gibson and fender "be proud if people make copies and still refer to the models by their names" example: les paul style, telecaster style or stratocaster... everyone knows a real fender or gibson from a copy. fact is some of the copies are better. just a fact. gibson and fender charge way too much and poor quality and customer service opens the door for the competition to start making those classic designs. suck it up buttercup.

 

[Wise Guy]

i build les paul's. trade and sell them. never got any legal letters of cease and desist from gibson or fender. it's time for them to let it go. they are losing the battle and by the way gibson and fender "be proud if people make copies and still refer to the models by their names" example: les paul style, telecaster style or stratocaster... everyone knows a real fender or gibson from a copy. fact is some of the copies are better. just a fact. gibson and fender charge way too much and poor quality and customer service opens the door for the competition to start making those classic designs. suck it up buttercup.

What would you typically sell a Standard style LP for?

 

[Slinky_King]

If you had a lock on all body types we (the players) would suffer tremendously. A guitar should be defined by the sum of its parts and nuances otherwise we may all go grab Epi's. To be honest I feel that except for the older Gibson's and the period after the Norlin era 1971-87 there hasn't been much to talk about. QC probs, wiring issues, cheap Mahogany etc. and so forth. I dont want to write a novel here but Gibson has lost the faith of a LOT of pros and except for Customs which I would still examine like Sherlock Holmes since I dont trust them I say the more the merrier. Lets get Gibson back on their game for what they cost.

 

[dscottyg]

It always mystified me how companies were ever allowed to make guitars in the same shape as Strats, Teles, LP, etc. but they aren’t allowed to use the headstock shape. Coke has a patent on their bottle shape. Ford would never be allowed to make a car in the exact shape as a Porsche.

Imagine if Gibson made a Les Paul with bird inlays. PRS would have a fit. “We can copy your whole design, but you can’t copy our birds.”

 

[KiltedGuitarist]

Sucks for Gibson, intellectual property is intellectual property. Anyhow, the "tiny club of experts and discerning guitarists" will always know what we're looking at.

Side note... does anyone else think the Firebird looks like a melted Explorer? Left in the car on a hot day kinda thing... Just my 2 cents...

 

[Filthygringo]

good, now we can get nice things.

Yeah at the cost of Gibson, it’s funny how people think that ripping other people off of their designs is a good thing and good for everybody. If someone did this to you. You wouldn’t be happy. But I guess is par for the course. Foreign countries don’t give a F about other corporations outside of their region. To me it’s more of a respect thing. I don’t buy any kind of knock offs or any shit like that. I want the real deal and I want to support the company who initially came up with the design

 

[Filthygringo]

But it's not really any different than the car shapes you describe. In 60+ years it's shaken out that there are really only a handful of basic body shapes that are practical to build and play and have remained popular, with different companies riffing on them. A Flying V is a popular, iconic, stock design. There are a lot of Flying V variations out there. Why should the Gibson variation in particular be trademarked (or for that matter the Jackson variant)?

In this particular case, the Firebird is a blatant ripoff of the Fender Jazzmaster designed to cash-in on the offset trend. The Jazzmaster isn't trademarked, why should the Firebird be?

It is different with headstocks, since they do act as a de facto logo for the manufacturer and there is far less of a functional aspect to their design.

I don’t know, I think that body shape is definitely trade markable. It also shows creativity I mean if I’m going to build a guitar let’s say a Strat style guitar. I’m going to change it up a little bit I wanna make it my own I don’t want to be the same run-of-the-mill Strat everybody has. And if I created a body shape I want to protect that shape as well. I don’t know just my way of thinking

 

[Olds442]

Yeah at the cost of Gibson, it’s funny how people think that ripping other people off of their designs is a good thing and good for everybody. If someone did this to you. You wouldn’t be happy. But I guess is par for the course. Foreign countries don’t give a F about other corporations outside of their region.

yeah that's me, a foreign country only concerned with my region.

ya got me.

 

[Miki Dord MJ]

Hopefully Jackson will start making the firebird again, those were great metal guitars

View attachment 415863 View attachment 415864

Nice guitars, are those all yours?

I like them, only it would be cool if Jackson make a reissue with a bit deeper cut away then it would imho prefect.Still i like them as they are, i didn't had a lot of changes to play them. Reason to try them out was ''Ratt'' and Robin C.

 

[Repo251]

It’s a great!