DiMarzio is sueing Sheptone over double-creme

[Richard]

Well, it doesn't violate the trademark.

[Lollar Jason]

Oh that sucks! Dimarzio is represented by ron bienstock who is the attorney that represented a large collection of guitar makers during the fender body shape ordeal. Ron knows what hes doing. in fenders case they waited- what 50 or 60 years to trademark the strat and tele body shapes after it had become generic- different deal- but even at that it took a couple years or more to be resolved and there was a large amount of people involved and that was opposing the mark before it was granted- yet another aspect that is different.
Ive gone on about this before- getting sued for infringment isnt as simple as providing a mountain of evidence which you will need to compile in a set of differening documents that have to be cross refrenced so every note, detail, article and exhibit all have to be in identical agreement and there are 3 or 4 different formats to the argument that have to be present that can go on for hundreds of pages and then no one actually looks at that unless it gets far enough to get in front of a judge which the court doesnt want to happen. hope you can settle it without too much pain.
If the case was you could prove they were deceptive or they misrepresented statements when they filed for the mark (which I have no reason to believe they did) or they abandonded the mark for the required number of years to make it ineffectual which they didnt you would have something to bargain with- evidence of the mark being wrong doesnt do much even if you have hundreds of pages of properly formatted evidence- at least not for the first year +. im no expert for sure, Ive just been through it before and my experience is the reality of what goes on has nothing to do with what anyone has talked about on any forum ive seen. Being sued for infringing puts you in a defensive position- totally different than going after someone. Looks to me like their trademark is what it is!
Getting a collective together to oppose an existing trademark- different deal than getting sued for infringement. IMO not worth bothering with because all of a sudden everyone could make dbl cream and then that progected 16,000 dollars a year in additional sales would probably be alot less. Whjats really awful is the intention of trademark law is to avoid source confusion so the public isnt fooled into thinking what they are buying is made by someone different- ex. buying pepsi thinking it was coke- I mean something you can only buy off one site that says clearly it was not made by the other company- having your name clearly marked on the product and charging more than the original company - charging more by far- has to be clear what the source is but even that doesnt make any difference.its a point you can certainly argue like the rest of the mountain.

[Justin Thomas]

Hey, didn't MightyMite do the Motherbucker, that was three coils? Someone did in the 70s, I thought. Myself, I'm gonna make an octuplets-creme with taps for each coil!

Justin

[Jim Shine]

Hey, didn't MightyMite do the Motherbucker, that was three coils? Someone did in the 70s, I thought. Myself, I'm gonna make an octuplets-creme with taps for each coil!

Justin

Yes. I have one from the early days when they were made by a California pickup OEM named Sergio. By 82 they were imported. You can tell by the baseplate (brass in the US, chrome plated on the imports). It sounds like shit. I have often thought about winding new coils for it.

[WolfeMacleod]

Huh. Imagine that. I think I might have just caught Larry in a blatant lie in one of his staements to the USPTO, date Sept 1, 1977.



And then there's this, from Jan 1977.

[Possum]

How is it that they are suing Spence when his business is in CANADA?

[jack briggs]

How is it that they are suing Spence when his business is in CANADA?

Sheptone
197 Woodland Parkway #104-491
San Marcos, CA 92069

[LtKojak]

How is it that they are suing Spence when his business is in CANADA?

Dave, Spence is SHEDPICKUPS (Shed Pickups, Guitar Pickups, Humbuckers, P90's, Tele, Strat, Custom, Vintage) and he's in Wales, United Kingdom.

Man, you're not getting any younger, it seems...

[Jim Shine]

I am not certain when Mighty Mite began selling pickups. They began in 1974 and by 1977 they had a very sparse line of pickups and hardware. They really kicked things up a notch in 1978 adding wood components sourced from various OEM's in southern California and Asia. Here is a pre-1978 catalog. That was Randy Zacuto's business. I believe he is still alive. Perhaps he can shed some light on the subject?

[Possum]

Dave, Spence is SHEDPICKUPS (Shed Pickups, Guitar Pickups, Humbuckers, P90's, Tele, Strat, Custom, Vintage) and he's in Wales, United Kingdom.

Man, you're not getting any younger, it seems...

Shed, Sheptone, if those similar names are confusing to me, then they are to customers too, like Motor City, Electric City etc. etc. Not to mention they lend themselves to twisted negative versions some of my customers have told me which I won't repeat ;-) Thats why I use my name and recommend others do the same, the buck stops here. No, I'm not getting any younger thats for sure, a bunch of operations and medical stuff last year nonstop, WTF.....

I don't get why after all these years DM is suddenly making some kid's life miserable who probably never even knew about DM's trademark and is probably a hobbyist anyway. I see that he still has a double cream humbucker photo on his website. This is a big mistake that we talked about years ago, don't show one or they can flag you. Wolfe has been beating on this story for as long as I've known him, but who has the MONEY to take this to court and play the money/lawyer game where the guy who runs out of money first loses. Thats the true reality of this, forget the Perry Mason series where the guy who is right wins, fiction, lawyers delay,delay delay, they bleed you dry. There's another big failing of their trademark, I haven't actually read it, but "creme" is not a technical color designation. If you want to protect a color it would seem to me you should be using a unique mix of dyes to make a color that can be held up side by side to another "creme" to show infringement. In graphic arts colored inks are designated by PMS numbers in color books and each color has a color mixing recipe for printers. There are tons of blues, greens, cremes, reds etc. Somewhere I have a photo I took over a bunch of different company's creme bobbins and no two of them were the same color. It could also be argued that the butryate stuff most are using are actually UN-colored, there is no dyes used. You can't protect an uncolored raw material or can you? Posting negative stories on Facebook about this is going to antagonize DM, guitar players aren't going to give a crap about it. Dont put photos of double white buckers on your website for sale, if they are under covers its no big deal, if you are mass producing pickups you should be worried about this problem, which is just weird DM would out of the blue go after this guy who can't possibly fight it. Sucks.

[Richard]

Although I find trademarking cream colored pickups silly, I believe if you don't defend a trademark you can lose it. Gibson lost the Les Paul trademark in Finland. I don't know how the laws are different over there but I understand why DiMarzio feels the need to defend their trademark.

[David King]

Since when was "cream" spelt "creme"? Enough of this Eurocentric BS!
Oh and why isn't "spelt" just "spelled".

[big_teee]

Don't forget the Golden Rule!
Ye who has the gold, makes the rules.
Or in the DeMarzee case, Ye who has the best lawyers, makes, or enforces the rules!
IMO this case will end badly for all but Dimarz!

I do however, fully recommend a verbal Boycott of all D. Pickups.
Go out of your way to tell everyone not to buy them, and why!
I personally wouldn't buy one, if they were the only pickups on earth!
T

[Leo_Gnardo]

I personally wouldn't buy one, if they were the only pickups on earth!

Not even if they were the creme of the crop?

It doesn't take the best lawyers to win an attrition case, just persistent ones. Cheap ones too - which aren't the best - just eat up more court time. You don't need smart ones, you need donkeys who won't get out of the way.

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
Can't the pickups have a removable black film adhered to the top, that can be removed by the customer. There should be a much simpler way around this. I can't believe this is causing such a problem. The pickups could be covered. This has even been discussed on another forum.
The go fund me account is preposterous, to help somebody win a lawsuit, for the privilege of buying their pickups, for hundreds of dollars each.