Let the games begin!!

[DoctorX]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business...ness-headlines

"The U.S. Supreme Court sided with MedImmune Inc. yesterday, ruling that the Gaithersburg biotech is allowed to sue over the validity of a patent - even while paying user fees to the patent holder.
Legal scholars said the decision opens the door for more patent lawsuits across a variety of sectors. And some said it could have a chilling effect on licensing deals"......

Could be useful in the future....

[Zhangliqun]

The shot heard 'round DiMarzio...uh, er...DiWorld...

[madialex]

Hey Larry

DID you hear that???? Bwaaaahaaaaaa I hope he eats crow till it comes out of his nose

[Tonerider]

I dont see the point. Does anyone on the forum license anything from other makers??

Surely this ruling is only applicable if thats the case??/

[madialex]

Hi Tonerider, I think the point is, that people like Mr. Dimarzio who has tried to patent everything on the planet so that he has exclusive rights to it and will sue anyone who uses any part of it. Like for example he tried or did patent the color cream, so no one could use it in pickups. He also tried to patent mirror finish as well as about every color in the spectrum. Do you see where this is going? He is trying to own the whole market exclusively and it isnt right for 1 person to have the monopoly on everything...

[Tonerider]

madialex,

I feel your pain, but this doesnt change anything. Reread the article, it merely states a change in legal convention - that a license agreement is now not viewed as an acceptance of the legitimacy of a patent.

Basically, the following scenario is covered:

IBM invents the mouse. Toshiba licenses the mouse from IBM, even though they think its an unsound patent. Five years later a new Toshiba CEO decides he wants to stop paying license fees. Can he challenge the patent??? Under the new interpretation of the law Toshiba can sue to invalidate the patent. Under the old legal convention, a judge would have regarded the fact that Toshiba was willing to enter into a licensing agreement as an admission of the patents validity.

In laymans logic, the new ruling does make sense, but also threatens to allow more cases to be heard, meaning longer court delays. As time means money, this does actually further help the big guys, whoever they are.

As a non-licensee (my assumption, correct me if I am wrong), you have a multitude of options if you would like to challenge or evade any patent.

[Possum]

cream bobbins

Alot has been griped about these double creme deals, but has DiMarzio actually ever jumped down anyone's throat for actually selling double creme sets? I am betting some tiny little business like mine he could give a shit about if I put double creme pickups on my site and called them by another name like vintage vanilla or some stupid name. There ARE some big companies that have been mentioned that do sell double creme bobbin pickups with no mention of licensing by DM. So if you want to do it go ahead, all they can do is send you a letter to cease and desist. The other problem is you cant buy decent double creme bobbins, Guitar Jones has them but they are way less than ideal.

[David Schwab]

There ARE some big companies that have been mentioned that do sell double creme bobbin pickups with no mention of licensing by DM.

I've been wondering about this for a while now... How does Carvin do it? They've been selling double cream pickups for a very long time.

[corduroyew]

I'm still kinda new to the whole electric thing. Only been working with them for 3 or 4 years. In acoustics, if somebody puts a patent on something they have to be able to prove that they were the 1st people to do it. If we wanted to use double cream bobbins wouldn't we just have to prove that somebody did it before demarzio put a patent on it? Double cream bobbins are in no way a new thing, and I've seen "vintage" photos of them. I'm sure somebody could dig something up to make it so the patent was thrown out.

[David Schwab]

I'm still kinda new to the whole electric thing. Only been working with them for 3 or 4 years. In acoustics, if somebody puts a patent on something they have to be able to prove that they were the 1st people to do it. If we wanted to use double cream bobbins wouldn't we just have to prove that somebody did it before demarzio put a patent on it? Double cream bobbins are in no way a new thing, and I've seen "vintage" photos of them. I'm sure somebody could dig something up to make it so the patent was thrown out.

This was discussed on the old forum, but here's the thing with DiMarzio. They conceder the double cream bobbins their trade dress. When they first came out, they were the only pickup maker making double cream bobbins with no covers. In fact, they were the first after market pickup maker. Any time you saw a guitar in the 70's with uncovered double cream bobbins, it was a DiMarzio Super Distortion Humbucker. You could see them on TV concert shows, and even from a distance, you knew it was a DiMarzio pickup. Cream became DiMarzio's trademark, and they started offering cream pickguards, switch plates and binding, for Les Pauls.

So I think their idea is that the double cream bobbins are associated with DiMarzio pickups. I'm not sure that's the case anymore however. We can argue that some Gibson pickups had double cream, but it was never Gibson's intention to have the bobbins seen in the first place. The fact that they made zebras was either by chance, or the people assembling the pickups did it for fun, since it was going to be covered up anyway.

[corduroyew]

If it can be proven that at some point in time, anybody made a pickup with 2 cream bobbins before dimarzio did it, then their patent is no good. Even if it can be proven that DM was the 1st to use 2 cream bobbins, DM can only stake claim on their shade of cream. If it's cream but slightly lighter or darker then the DM patent color then you are still safe arn't you?

[kevinT]

going to get to the bottom of it next week

I called DiMarzio yesterday to talk to someone about the patent. The person (not Larry) that I was supposed to talk to was at NAMM. The staff person that I did speak to said they did have a patent but she couldn't tell me anything else because that is all she knew.

I looked everywhere to find a reference to it and never found anything. Unless DiMarzio has something in writing their claim can't hold water. With Carvin, Bare Knuckles, Tonerider, and some other pup makers doing the double cream bobbin thing I just don't think its a big deal for them anymore.

I will find out next week and post my results.

All I have to say about it is SHOW ME THE MONEY or should I say WHERE'S THE BEEF!

[Zhangliqun]

I've talked to a couple of pretty well-known boutiquers who told me they got some nasty letters from DiMarzio when they found out they were making double-creams.

You can get double-creams from Seymour Duncan but only with a cover that you have to remove.

As for why Carvin gets away with it, I'm guessing it's because no-one would confuse 22 black allen screws with the usual 6 nickel poles/6 nickel slug format.

[David King]

We aren't talking about a patent at all, it's got to be either a Trade Mark or a Copyright. A patent would imply that the double cream sounds different because it's a special bobbin color that affects the operation of the pickup.

[kevinT]

Found it!...it is a trademark

Ok, here is the link. It is in fact a Trademark and not a patent.

Nevertheless, I have some questions that I want to ask the contact person at DiMarzio regarding this issue.


http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?...te=ib2ksk.2.25