A 2012 color trademark court desicion. Pay attention.

[mr fab]

looking back at the history of the humbucker, paf's existed in 3 colour combinations, double black, black and cream (zebra) and double cream. these were as we all know quite random as they were not intended to be exposed, but rather hidden under a cover. dimarzio trademarked the double cream, but they potentially also could have copyrighted the other two combinations as well, even though they existed prior.

I wonder what dimarzio would say if Gibson released a double cream burstbucker ? Gibson would rightly have a valid argument that they were making double creams when larry was in diapers.

I do recall that around the same time that dimarzio flooded the market with their super distortion pickup, mighty mite, Lawrence, and many others also offered double cream. as for the mighty mite pickups, I recall reading somewhere that they were made for them by dimarzio at some stage.

[rjb]

Mean boy pokes stick in the cage

Let's recap And please read this time... don't let your eyes gloss over, or go all ADD. This sh!t is important for you people to know.

Speaking for myself, I could no more not "go all ADD" than you could not "go all OCD".
I don't have a horse in this race, but just happen to find this sh!t fairly interesting.
Nonetheless, I think that, for a casual observer, I have a firm enough grasp of the concept of "aesthetic functionality".

Those sound like real functionality differences (or whatever the legal term is).

What I meant to say (but was too tired to look up) was:
If black plastic is softer and shows scratches more easily than white or cream plastic, those are issues of utilitarian functionality.

By "accepted" I mean this. Guitarists are very aesthetically-minded people. Guitars typically come with white, cream, or black binding. ... I have never been asked for any other color other than black, cream, or zebra, or white.

In other words, you are saying guitarists have no imagination and like to see what they've already seen.
(If they had any taste, some one would be making a fortune selling "speed knob gold" trim kits.)

Companies do trademark colors associated with their brand...

This website has a good article, they state...
"For example, when you see chocolate candy in a purple wrapper, you know it's Cadbury: when you see a turquoise box for jewelry, you know it's from Tiffany & Co."

Yes, but Cadbury and Tiffany still put their name or logo on their packaging.
The whacky thing about DiMarzio's color trademark is that it has always been an "insider's in-the-know secret handshake" trade dress.

Now the thing with DiMarzio is that that cream color is no longer strongly associated with their brand. Not like it was in the 70s when they only came in cream. And they now state the standard color of their pickups is black....

That makes it sound like they abandoned their trademark.

Something I find (mildly) interesting is that the more I look into it, the more it seems that DiMarzio pioneered not only the idea of making pickup bobbins to be seen, but the aesthetic of color-coordinating trim and binding to to match bobbins and plastic pickup covers.

In days of old, electric guitars came with binding in one of 3 styles: black, white, or some form of laminated black & white striping. (Sure, old maple-necked Vega banjos had "ivoroid" binding, and certain Martin dreadnaughts had "herring bone" binding, and so on- but now I'm going all ADD.) Around 1977-78 (I remember because it was around the time of the Ibanez LP lawsuit), the owner of my local music store showed me two black LPs- one used & one brand new. He was gushing over the look of the aged binding against the patina-ed black finish. I concurred it looked neat, as long as you spent your time gazing at the edge of your guitar neck....

Where was I? Oh yea, the point is that in the old days, you didn't buy a LP with cream binding; you bought a LP with white binding and waited for it to turn yellow.

I have searched Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars, and have found no reference to a Les Paul with cream binding earlier than the 1978 Pro-Deluxe (a goldtop with two soapbar P-90s). The earliest with exposed coil HBs (and black pickup rings): Les Paul Standard, shipped in 1979.
https://books.google.com/books?id=M-...ing%22&f=false

As you've noted here, http://music-electronics-forum.com/t29076-2/#post256032 , DiMarzio began selling Super Distortion pickups in 1972, and used to sell matching cream trim kits, including binding, for Les Pauls. It appears they probably could have trademarked those trim kits- but did not.

So now, it seems that after years of guitar manufacturers copying a color scheme originated by DiMarzio, we have a bizarre and ironic situation: DiMarzio is suing pickup makers for violating a "secret" trademark that they have effectively abandoned, while said pickup makers are claiming aesthetic functionality because guitar players want pickups to match a trim color scheme that DiMarzio originated but never trademarked.
Or something like that.

Getting to the point, hey look! There goes a white squirrel! OK, I'm back.
Do you (not you, David, I mean the universal you) want to make pickups, or do you want to spend all your time and money fighting legal battles?
Referring to this info from DM's trademark https://trademarks.justia.com/731/50/n-a-73150505.html
I see this:

Image Trademark with Serial Number 73150505
Status: 800 - Registered And Renewed

Mark Drawing 2S15 - Illustration: Drawing or design without any word(s)/letter(s)/ number(s)

Description of Mark: The mark comprises the double design representation of an electronic sound pickup for guitars, which is disclaimed apart from the mark as shown.

Does that mean you could avoid infringing DM's trademark simply by putting some word(s)/letter(s)/number(s) on the front of the pickup? Like, say, your logo? Yes, I realize this might increase production costs by some trivial amount. But if you are proud of your product, why wouldn't you want it to be easily identified? Unless, of course, your actual intent is to infringe on DM's trademark....

Hm, back in the 70's I just wasn't hip to double creams being exclusively DiMarzio. What the heck did I know?

Me neither. I have a '70s P-Bass, bought at a swap meet because the price was right. I figured the brass nut and Badass II bridge might not be original (not to mention the toggle switch on the spray-painted aluminum scratch guard), but had no inkling the cream covers meant "hot-rod after-market pickup".

Yes I'm aware some people consider their guitars to be fashion accompaniments, hell I worked for a guy who definitely did.

In a Guitar Player interview with Rick Nelson, he claimed he never turned the control knobs on his checkerboard guitars to a position that would break up the visual pattern.

In any case I hope double cream ceases being a DiMarzio "service mark" or whatever, and goes back to Oreos where it belongs.

Hate to tell you this, but I'm pretty sure the "creme" in Oreos is lard and sugar.

-rb

[big_teee]

IMO none of this means anything, if no one is going to do anything!

[John Kolbeck]

I'm not a lawyer, and even I can see that the case law is not in DiMarzio's favor. It's obviously a lack of collective will power that keeps the status quo what it is.

[rjb]

looking back at the history of the humbucker, paf's existed in 3 colour combinations, double black, black and cream (zebra) and double cream. these were as we all know quite random as they were not intended to be exposed, but rather hidden under a cover.

How is aged white or unpigmented butyrate the same as new cream pigmented ABS?
PAF bobbins were never "cream".
http://www.guitarhq.com/paf.html

[rjb]

I'm not a lawyer, and even I can see that the case law is not in DiMarzio's favor. It's obviously a lack of collective will power that keeps the status quo what it is.

Yea, will power, as well as this:

Yeah takes deep pockets and thousands of hours preparing formal paperwork that has to be submitted in a particular format that changes depending on what location the federal court is in....

My experience- doesnt matter if you are in the right or not; its all about money and how much you want to spend on it regardless of the facts and even then if it goes to jury trial there is no telling how they may vote even if the evidence seems irrefutable.

[John Kolbeck]

Forcing a modular design would greatly increase the cost and ease of manufacture. If anyone has actually bothered to read the stuff I've posted here, that goes squarely against trademark law. For people who say "just put a cover on it..." same damn thing, it affects the cost of manufacture.

Backing up a bit; how would providing the customer with a slightly disassembled humbucker with several color bobbins, and then allowing the customer to place the creams bobbin beside each other go squarely against the trademark law? It seems to me that if you provide a variety of colored materials, and leave the color coordination to the customer, then you are not even as risk of provoking a lawsuit.

Suppose you buy a green hat and it comers with several colored patches, one happens to be yellow. Is that in violation of John Deere's trademark simply because the customer might choose to apply the yellow patch to the green hat by itself?

I'm often swapping pickups anyway, I wouldn't mind having the ability to change the color scheme without having to buy an entirely new pickup.

[Mike Sulzer]

Backing up a bit; how would providing the customer with a slightly disassembled humbucker with several color bobbins, and then allowing the customer to place the creams bobbin beside each other go squarely against the trademark law? It seems to me that if you provide a variety of colored materials, and leave the color coordination to the customer, then you are not even as risk of provoking a lawsuit.

Suppose you buy a green hat and it comers with several colored patches, one happens to be yellow. Is that in violation of John Deere's trademark simply because the customer might choose to apply the yellow patch to the green hat by itself?

I'm often swapping pickups anyway, I wouldn't mind having the ability to change the color scheme without having to buy an entirely new pickup.

Back in the days when margarine was new, there were some places where it had a pale cream color, but came with a packet of food coloring that the consumer could mix in in order to get the proper butter color, a color it could not legally be sold with.

Plato's (as well as Gibson's) ideal form for a hum bucker pickup has a cover. So as far as fashion goes, this discussion bears some resemblance to a Victoria's Secret fashion show, where underwear is the outerwear.

[mr fab]

How is aged white or unpigmented butyrate the same as new cream pigmented ABS?
PAF bobbins were never "cream".
Gibson PAF Humbuckers Pickups Patent Applied For Pickups M69 M-69 pickup rings - Vintage Guitars Info

yes you are right,,, my bad

[WolfeMacleod]

How is aged white or unpigmented butyrate the same as new cream pigmented ABS?
PAF bobbins were never "cream".
Gibson PAF Humbuckers Pickups Patent Applied For Pickups M69 M-69 pickup rings - Vintage Guitars Info

That page is chock full of mis-information. PAFs didn't have brass covers.
And, plenty of people still call cream "white"

[WolfeMacleod]

Backing up a bit; how would providing the customer with a slightly disassembled humbucker with several color bobbins, and then allowing the customer to place the creams bobbin beside each other go squarely against the trademark law? It seems to me that if you provide a variety of colored materials, and leave the color coordination to the customer, then you are not even as risk of provoking a lawsuit.

Suppose you buy a green hat and it comers with several colored patches, one happens to be yellow. Is that in violation of John Deere's trademark simply because the customer might choose to apply the yellow patch to the green hat by itself?

I'm often swapping pickups anyway, I wouldn't mind having the ability to change the color scheme without having to buy an entirely new pickup.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "modular" -- I was thinking you meant "modular" as a way to replace just the tops of the bobbins (IE: some sort of bobbin topper) creating some sort of multi-pieced bobbin that could be altered by pulling off the top and snapping on a new top.

[John Kolbeck]

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "modular" -- I was thinking you meant "modular" as a way to replace just the tops of the bobbins (IE: some sort of bobbin topper) creating some sort of multi-pieced bobbin that could be altered by pulling off the top and snapping on a new top.

Either or. It's hard to take the cost argument seriously when premium humbuckers cost in excess of $100. I'm sure something can be figured out.

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
I really don't see why this is such a problem.

[rjb]

That page is chock full of mis-information.

Maybe so, but it's also full of photos of actual PAFs.
I can't speak for the lighting or white balance of the pics, but those white bobbins don't look "cream" to me.

PAFs didn't have brass covers.

"Everybody" knows the earliest PAFs had stainless steel covers.
But Seymour Duncan also says most PAFs had nickel-plated brass covers.
http://pafpickups.com/
(Although he does also have a habit of calling white "cream").

And, plenty of people still call cream "white"

But, apparently, not as many as people who have a vested interest in calling white, bone, or amber "cream".

OK, I'm done with the needling, and I apologize for the agita.
But I really do encourage you to give the large bold text in post #32 some thought.

Peace,
-rb

[rjb]

Hello,
I really don't see why this is such a problem.

If you were being sued, you might.