fender loses trademark application

[jason lollar]

If you hang out with alot of builders its well known that bass players are far more adventurous than guitar players as far as what they will accept- maybe its because they dont have to think about those two extra strings.



R has gone so far to protect thier trademarks I have heard countless stories about how you cant buy any replacement parts for vintage guitars missing pieces. So i get all these people asking me to make replacement pickups- its backfiring on them and pissing off thier customers.

now that i have a laser cutter I could make and exact engraved replacement of that missing truss rod cover for that vintage R I use to own that they wouldnt sell me

[David Schwab]

As time went on and both Fender and Gibson went after the low-end budget market with their own ersatz copies, the brand simply evaporated for everyone except collectors or pros. Put another way, if I can "buy a Fender" for $250, and I can buy another brand for the same money or less that compares favourably, then where does my lust for Fender go? Down the dumper is where.

Wonderfully put Mark.

I think it all comes down to greed. It's nice for Fender to want to have affordable models, but they do so on such a grand scale that it's way beyond that. It's more about wanting to make sure EVERYONE has a Fender. And some of the cheap ones are pretty lame quality wise.

With Rickenbacker, John Hall knows what they are, and what they aren't. He wants to keep the quality high, and the traditional values, and he's doing a great job. Probably because it's a family run business and hasn't been sold several times like Fender. Fender wants to be all things to all people, and that just doesn't always work.

I also think Fender is on the verge of being a monopoly with all the companies they own.

[David Schwab]

If you hang out with alot of builders its well known that bass players are far more adventurous than guitar players as far as what they will accept- maybe its because they dont have to think about those two extra strings.

I have a theory on this based on my years as a bass player. I started playing about 1969, but had been into music since I was very young, and especially after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. My parents were on the old side when they had me.. my dad was 57, and my mom was 45. So I always heard a lot of older music growing up. My mom was a jazz singer and played guitar (she had an old Martin... wish I still had that!) and my brother played drums when I was a kid. So there was a lot of music in the home.

So even when I started playing bass, they came with flats, and pretty much stayed in the background. Of course with a lot of the rock and roll stuff the bass was coming more forward. But we still had underpowered amps, and less gear than the guitarists. Bass wasn't a "serious" instrument either.

So when things started changing, and bass was more out front with a brighter tone and all, many bass players like myself went for more high tech gear... I was playing a Ric when everyone else I saw had a P bass, and then I put Hi-A pickups and a preamp in it back in 1977.

So I think its because bassist were the underdogs. As new bass gear came out, it pushed the envelope. Meanwhile many guitarist like the more traditional gear and tone.

Electric bass guitar is still a very new instrument.

R has gone so far to protect thier trademarks I have heard countless stories about how you cant buy any replacement parts for vintage guitars missing pieces. So i get all these people asking me to make replacement pickups- its backfiring on them and pissing off thier customers.

now that i have a laser cutter I could make and exact engraved replacement of that missing truss rod cover for that vintage R I use to own that they wouldnt sell me

I have two '74 4001 basses. In a move a few years ago I seem to have lost one truss rod cover. These are the older ones with the logo silk screened on clear acrylic. I plan on making myself a new one. It would be fairly easy to do by scanning the old one. Some adventurous person could easily do this and sell them on eBay with the crazy prices they fetch. I wouldn't do it, but it wouldn't be hard to do. It's a real shame when you see people taking a perfectly good 70's bass and selling it as parts because they can get more money for it that way.

I also lost a bridge for one of my basses. it was for the older "split" tailpiece. The newer bridges don't fir the older bridges. I've heard that R will go after people making replacement parts, even though you can buy a clone bridge from places like Allparts!

And we all know about the horseshoe pickups that people can't make (except Rick Turner) even though R doesn't really make them anymore. Not the real ones anyway. It's silly. Same with the Toasters.

I can see them protecting their body shapes, but not stopping people from making replacement parts based on the look of the part.

[soundmasterg]

Thanks Mark. That's an interesting view I had never though of before. Something to think about as I price my own work.


The other iconic brand is Gretsch, who have also met precious little opposition, simply because they generally focussed on higher-end labour-intensive products, and generally ignored the budget market. They have introduced lower-priced models in recent years, though, and that might be the thin edge of the wedge. For the time being, though, neither have to fight the same court battles Fender and Gibson did.

Fender owns Gretsch now. This may be why you see the change lately and will provide an interesting study of your theory.

Thanks!

Fender doesn't actually own Gretsch. The Gretsch family still owns it, but they've struck a deal with Fender that gives Fender distribution rights, and they also control manufacturing of them.

Greg

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks for the compliment Dave.

Being the Pollyanna I am, I won't chalk it up to greed. They ARE allowed to make money, as far as I'm concerned. Rather, they have painted themselves into a corner, brand-wise, panicked, and are trying to turn the clock back by dint of their legal department, and it simply isn't going to work using that strategy. I'm reminded somewhat of Roadrunner/Coyote cartoons, when someone goes off a cliff and is scrambling in thin air trying to run fast enough in mid-air to get back on the cliff. They (Coyote, Fender, Gibson) either have to accept that they ARE going to fall once off the cliff, or else make it a point not to run towards the cliff so quickly. For whatever one might think of the business decisions made by Rickenbacker and Grestch in past, from a revenue-generation standpoint, they have walked slowly enough towards that cliff that they can peer over the edge, turn around, and walk back if they choose to.

[jason lollar]

you know fender bought hamer last year? They also did some radical overseas distribution changes to one central place- probably to have more of a dictatorial relation to thier dealers- it really PO'ed thier old distributors.

Fender bought out alot of companies in the last 10 years- they are the mega company CBS tried to make but miserably failed at.

the more the big guys piss off thier dealers the better we have it.
the big G has something like a 120 thousand dollar buy in- you have to buy that much to get your yearly supply and they send you whatever they have availibler- you dont get to choose so you might wind up with a load of melody makers and very little of anything else- could be you get all the hard to sell stuff. if you dont want it too bad so alot of the little to meduim size guys have dropped G. I talk to dealers and distributors all the time- there is a big stink going on in the last 4 years or so.

I heard the retail price of the pickups from F and G are going up so if thats true the future is brighter for all of us.

[jason lollar]

OH YES David! They have the toaster pickup cover trademarked. I have a stack of papers they sent me on what they have trademarked and even some BS stuff that they claimed is trademarked but isnt. Making that old painted truss rod cover, I could do that on my laser but rick patrols for replacement parts and steps on your balls when you advertize them. They have all that stuff trademarked- the cresting wave bridge, its all trademarkable under a design trademark.

[David Schwab]

Fender actually bought Kaman Music Corporation, and they owned Ovation/Adamas, Takamine, and Hamer. Fender also owns Guild, DeArmond, Tacoma, Jackson, Charvel, and SWR.

Jason, speaking of Ric, Mr. Hall sent me an email once when I said in their forum that they should use graphite in their necks on the 4003 basses, so they could get them slim again like the 4001 was. He cited me a patent number, and explained that graphite reinforcements were patented.

The patent was actually for the Moses graphite neck, or more precisely the construction of a hollow graphite neck. Rick Tuner had the patent on the graphite neck. Ned Steinberger has another patent on a graphite composit instrument. But none of these are for graphite reinforcement. I told him that Moses sells graphite reinforcements! Besides the fact that everyone and their mother uses carbon-graphite rods in necks. He said they were small potatoes so Moses didn't go after them.

I still like Rics though, even though I can't always understand his thinking.

[belwar]

you know fender bought hamer last year? They also did some radical overseas distribution changes to one central place- probably to have more of a dictatorial relation to thier dealers- it really PO'ed thier old distributors.

Fender bought out alot of companies in the last 10 years- they are the mega company CBS tried to make but miserably failed at.

The big rumor is they are buying up brands because they want to go public. Last year they purchased the distribution rights to Taylor Guitars in Europe. Taylor dropped all their distributors in Europe and fender took over. This meant every Taylor dealer was dropping thier pants to get rid of the guitars. This was great for us because we picked up so major high profile distributors that were otherwise tied up with the big T. I personally think that Fender is working towards purchasing Taylor. Bob and Kurt dont have heirs to pass the company on to and they are aging themselves. Just a guess though.

the more the big guys piss off thier dealers the better we have it.
the big G has something like a 120 thousand dollar buy in- you have to buy that much to get your yearly supply and they send you whatever they have availibler- you dont get to choose so you might wind up with a load of melody makers and very little of anything else- could be you get all the hard to sell stuff.

I agree totally. Gibsons re-up is huge. We get new dealers all the time based on the fact we dont force certain models down thier throat. However there are just some dealers who take it and take it because they must have gibson in thier eyes. The line I hear is "My daddy had a gibson, my grand daddy had a gibson, my grand daddys daddy had a gibson ... so we have to sell them!"

I heard the retail price of the pickups from F and G are going up so if thats true the future is brighter for all of us.

It could be true, and I would suspect it is. Every major electric and acoustic maker has been hit so hard we haven't had a choice but to raise prices... Last year was devastating.. First you had fuel his $4.60 a gallon which meant immediate price increases in labor and delivery charges and electricity.. Then three months later pretty much every supplier had to raise thier prices too. So we have price increases to pay for it all.. The the dollar flipped meaning our one safe haven (the international market) stopped buying as well. People are buying less instruments due to the higher expense which makes the cycle worse.