Fender Loses Battle - Your Take, BP?

[bovinehost]

I understand that Fender lost the Clone Wars and that now the usual suspects are free to make as many Ps, Teles and Strats as they like.

I couldn't bring myself to read the entire 70-plus page judgment, but it's here:

USPTO TTABVUE. Proceeding Number 91161403

What say you?

 

[GWDavis28]

Wow that's gonna be a blow for them. WOW that dates back to 2003!!!

Glenn |B)

 

[Lonnystingray]

In the current market I think 7ender should act as his founder did, be succesfull and unique with the products they design or manufacture.

After 50 years, and thousands of copies, 7ender still is calling the shots in guitar world (no offence to EB of course), but when their success was started with a.o. the design of their products, it should now focus on new products, and not keep re-inventing the wheel.

I mean; who still drives a T-Ford on a daily basis? Products evolve, and so should 7ender.

For example, EBMM's products are changed and adapted often, when the market did not need the Sabre anymore, it was dropped, and with the Big AL for example EBMM makes a statement that the Electric (bass) guitar is never to old to be re-designed or changed or improved.

 

[Lonnystingray]

As a side note, I believe this to be the final blow to 7ender, showing that they have lost their real connection with the users of their products. I have met the board of directors of 7ender last year, only one of them actually understands and knows how to play guitar..

Compare that to a founder who is actively participating on his own forums..

 

[Big Poppa]

OK Thanks for asking Jack. This is going to stir up a lot of comments but I want to make sure everybody knows that the mods will be heavy handed on this one...lets not turn this into Fender bashing or xerox bashing

OK...I was asked to join many times the defense fund and participate in the advertising campaign that the copy makers were embarking on. I declined. They said I would be at risk because my stuff has offset horns. I said I would take my chances. I couldn't get on with the righteousness of people who were basically copycats. Copycats are fine if you like that sort of stuff. From my seat and not high horse I know what it feels like to be copied.

I didn't read the 70 pages but I know that Wonderdog will and fill me in. The problem is that Fender tried to protect their assets too late. They had allowed too many copies for too long. Part of the problem is that the USPTO didn't protect shapes for years. SO really it was part the governments fault too.

What would the guitar and bass world be if you couldn't just build an allegedly better Strat or P Bass? Would the market be broader with more choices? I think so. In a funny way the fact that so much that has been brought to market has been regurgitated Fender or Gibson that it has kept the buying public and the retailers horrendously narrow in focus and acceptance.

Now before the other forums who love to bash me but quote me all the time point out the obvious. Yes, the Stingray is Fender based. Or Fender Bassed.... Thats cause Leo Fender designed it with Tommy Walker. I paid the for the intellectual property and built a team to develop hopefully something unique. I could have been more daring if the market wasn't so intolerant of something different. Maybe I would have failed miserably. Maybe the narrow mindedness was a benefit to us still being here after 25 years. Nobody knows. But we were laughed at with many of our offerings. It took thick skin to handle the ridicule of the Silhouette.....until Keith Richards played it and then we were OK. But still a bass company....until Evh....after evh we were back to the bass company pidgeon hole...until Petrucci.....But I digress

So heres what I think in the end. The copy dominated culture and market in the guitar business has been a double edged sword for Fender and others. On one hand they have lost some sales to the Xerox's of the world. On the other the up and coming assemblers (not builders...when you buy a body from a thid party and then send it to another third party to paint and then you assemble you are not a builder) and rare builders have put absolutely zero pressure on Fender to evolve or innovate. All in all it has worked in their favor. I think at innovation's expense. I would have preferred the other reality where Fender made what they made and others were forced to build a better and different instrument. IF Fender had won it would have been very bad in the short term for many assemblers. They would have been forced to try new designs and have them be probably rejected by the buying publc.

Regarding the comment about the Fender Board...THey are a lot smarter than we are...they are 20 times our size. I cannot throw stones at them...ITs more fun to poke them for not moving forward.

 

[fogman]

Very interesting.

Like BP says, it's a double edged sword and we couldn never know how it would be had it been different.

My opinion is that Fender and Gibson do well because there are copy cats. There is pop culture and nostalgia which eventually makes some people want the real thing. It also insanely drives up the prices of the originals which again is in favour of the top dogs from a marketing standpoint.
I think if builders were forced to invent the wheel to get into business, the top dogs would not have the flare that they carry now as the new options would really show the dogs lack of innovation.
You can only invent so many new wheels. We all benefit in a greater manner from a collective evolution of the wheel instead.

 

[GHWelles]

.The problem is that Fender tried to protect their assets too late. They had allowed too many copies for too long. Part of the problem is that the USPTO didn't protect shapes for years. SO really it was part the governments fault too.....

That is it. You have to protect your intellectual property as you go along. You can't sit back and let copies be made for decades, and then suddenly decide "I am going to protect my IP now, and I am going to shut down all you copycats." If you let copies go on and become established, you are in essence abandoning your mark.

This is why Ernie Ball Inc. constantly and actively protects its IP and addresses copies and infringement as they are discovered, on E-bay and elsewhere. The law states as long as you are actively protecting your mark, it is not abandoned. You only need to be pursuing one infringer at a time, but it must be constant protection of the mark. Fender did not protect its body shapes as trademarks for what, 50 years?

Now, Fender did protect their headstock shapes and those are trademarked, so they still have that, and the names of their instruments are also trademarked. Fender will be OK.

 

[five7]

Did Leo Fender know how to play a guitar?

 

[Mogee]

Even the best copy of anything is just a copy. There is something to be said for having an original, and I think like what was said before. A true player will not be satisfied with anything but an original. On a side note, after hearing my EBs, two of my friends who were pursuing Jazz basses are now going after a new Stingray.

 

[bovinehost]

Did Leo Fender know how to play a guitar?

No.

 

[Basspro]

Did Leo Fender know how to play a guitar?

No, Leo never did learn to play.

Leo Fender - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Russel]

this is really interesting...

 

[smallequestrian]

Even the best copy of anything is just a copy. There is something to be said for having an original, and I think like what was said before. A true collector will not be satisfied with anything but an original.

There, fixed that for you. Without taking this in a direction that BP wouldn't like. There are a lot of "True players" out there that are playing high end Fender copies, I don't think any of us are going to tell Will Lee that he isn't a true player.

 

[T-bone]

Thanks, Jack, for the great thread. I'm always enthralled with BP's insight, and thrilled he takes the time to include us Knuckleheads. What tickles me most are some of his little pearls of wisdom:

Regarding the comment about the Fender Board...THey are a lot smarter than we are...they are 20 times our size. I cannot throw stones at them...ITs more fun to poke them for not moving forward.

Keep poking, BP.

tbone

 

[strummer]

Thanks BP and Wonderdog, and of course jack for posting this. I don't have anything meaningful to add, so I'll just sit back and enjoy.

 

[bovinehost]

Copyrights and such aside, it's laughable to imagine an entire INDUSTRY springing up in order to make a better Bongo or Stingray, isn't it?

 

[TheAntMan]

Bongo, Big-AL, SUB, 30th Anniversary SR4, 25th Anniversary.

H, HS, HH, HSS, SSS, 3 band, 4 band, push buttons, phantom coil, serial / parallel, active / passive.

on and on...

EBMM....nuff said

-- Ant

 

[Duarte]

H, HS, HH, HSS, SSS, 3 band, 4 band, push buttons, phantom coil, serial / parallel, active / passive.

5 way selectors, neodymium, alnico, ceramic, tone blocks, BFR, limited editions, 2 band, 4, 5, 6 string, pan pots, piezos....

I love EBMM...

 

[b-unit]

There really is not a lot of new guitar and bass designs out there which makes new EBMM products so refreshing. When I was a teenager in the eighties, everyone wanted to play Charvels or Kramers as you just had to have that pointy "hockey stick" head stock. Those instruments really weren't innovative, but they had the "must have" features of the time such as locking nuts and Floyd Rose trems etc.

As a lefty playing bass in the late eighties and into the nineties, I had a real hard time finding a bass that really felt like home to me. Had I discovered EBMM sooner, I would not have spent so many years playing the unsatisfying basses that i did.

Its so cool to have a bass made by EBMM with all the quality and class that goes into it but still have a connection to Leo and his innovative designs.

 

[scottbass71]

Very Interesting If I had the time I would love to read the 70 pages ( but probably wont)
In saying that as metioned a few times on this forum a lot of the music industry is living in the past.
I remember a few years ago I was working in Hong Kong and the guy I was working with (non-musician) was with me and we went into a few music stores there were a heaps of those aged F@nders and he couldnt believe these were brand new instruments and people paid a premium to buy damaged equipment.