Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

egosheep wrote:Some horseshoes seem to have a rough surface on the inside... were the originals sand cast, or bent?

They were bent, but the millscale was barely removed from the inside which gave them rough look.

Eden.

bassduke49 wrote:I've got a feeling that if Turner has been producing these things for years, that they may have some sort of agreement with RIC that we are not privy to. Perhaps they pay some sort of royalty per unit. You can still protect your trademark and permit others to copy it. You just have to have some legal agreement and perhaps compensation. Folks get into trouble when they copy something without the originator's permission.

Thats what I was suggesting that RIC could do to make the HS available as an aftermarket part. But the chances of that are zero. And Turner may indeed have an "understanding" with RIC to make these things. If he dosen't, and JH finds out(and he will), then Turner can expect a cease and dissist letter from the RIC lawyers I'm sure at some point.

BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS wrote:rickfan63 said...
Point well taken Paul. However there should always be "better ideas" coming or else there is never any innovation, regardless of what business or industry we are talking about. Not all of them make it past the discussion or drawing board phase though I know. And some don't pass the test of time(ie: the 1980's Steinberger all-graphite bass). Big hoopla over that one back then, now you don't ever see them. Except at Ed Romans .

(or my steinberger under the rear wheels of our 5 ton ! )

i believe if RIC cut a royalty deal with someone capable of making horseshoe pickups that would stand up electrically and mechanically and selling them thru the RIC boutique, i see no reason not to go ahead. we get our horseshoes, RIC gets a royalty, the manufacturer,(loller or turner) gets paid for making them , and we stop bitchin' ! seems win=win.

I used to refer to those old Steinbergers as boat paddle basses. If you didnt play them, you could always go on the lake with them....LOL!!!!

+1 on the royalty deal IMHO.

One should note that the Rick trademark is dated April 26, 2006. Any horseshoe made between about 1949 (when the patent expired) and April 26, 2006 was not in violation of anything - although selling it now might be. So Rick Turner, Rick Aiello and this Lollar guy were not doing anything wrong until that time. I don't know all the legalities of the situation, but it surprises me that one can claim a trademark used legally by multiple companies and then issue Cease and Desist orders to people whose businesses also employ that trademark. I suppose Rickenbacker does at least have precident, but at the same time, I doubt they have made a real horseshoe since the '70's.

Rick apparently did a spate of Trademarking starting in about 1999. I found 10 at the Patent and tradmark office. They include things like the 4001/3, 360 and 325 body shapes, the Ric script, the Truss rod cover shape and certain jewelry items:

http://tinyurl.com/yabe3mc

The last one issued was the horseshoe pickup.

An interesting parallel is the compound radius fingerboard which was pattented by Warmouth in the late 1980's. Shockingly, a compund radius was pre-existing technology. David Gilmour had used a 1970 compound radius Lewis guitar on Dark SIde of the Moon. At the time the patent was issued, I remeber that Dan Erlewine complained loudly that luthiers and repairmen often make compound radius boards and you could buy them from Stewart McDonald. BUt they disappeared. I guess no one wanted to pay the legal bills.

As for Steinberger. The reason you haven't seen them recently is that Ned Steinberger sold the company to GIbson. Gibson "moved" the company to Nashville but never resumed production of the graphite guitars and basses. Cheap wooden import copies are still available and in the last few years prouction of new Steinbergers has started - but I don;t theink they are graphite.

weemac wrote:

egosheep wrote:Some horseshoes seem to have a rough surface on the inside... were the originals sand cast, or bent?

They were bent, but the millscale was barely removed from the inside which gave them rough look.

Eden.

Yep.

I know this was mentioned last year, but Cole Clark is still apparently making his horseshoe lap-steel downunder....

I want to make it clear that I'm not a lawyer or anything like that, so don't take what I saw as gospel....but if you read the trade dress page posted, and you read the pdf posted, there are a couple loopholes. The trade dress page states: First is that the appearance features that you want to count as your trade dress must be non-functional. In other words they must not simply be there to do a job that all other similar products might have as the same appearance to do the same job.

So in Rickenbacker's case with the modern "horseshoe" pickup, the shoes are in fact non-functional and are just there for cosmetic reasons. On Lollar's horseshoe and I assume Turner's, and of course on the original RIC one up to 1968, the shoes were in fact functional. Reading further into that, it seems you can't attempt to trademark the functional aspect of a design if other similar products would have to use that same functional aspect in order to work.

Further, if you read on the pdf posted for the RIC horseshoe trademark, it states: [i]"The mark consists of a configuration of a rectangular metal guitar pickup with left and right side metal coverings over magnetic electronics for electronically transmitting sound to the amplification system."[/i]

So in Rickenbacker's case of their trademark, it states that the magnetic electronics are under the covers....nowhere does it state that the covers themselves are in fact magnetic, which means that any horseshoe that has magnetic shoes and no magnets under the covers should not be covered by that trademark as far as I can tell. That would mean that Lollar's isn't covered by this trademark in my eyes. Perhaps there is more wording to the trademark that wasn't posted, I haven't looked. I don't think a trademark could stand if they tried to enforce the functional aspect of the design as applying to their pickup vis a vis the trademark that they already have. Lollar stopped making his horseshoe pickups because the guy doing the shoes stopped doing them. That doesn't mean RIC didn't send cease and desist orders to the parties....I'm sure they did as thats a great scare tactic.

Greg

I recall apopst by JH stating that the shoes used on the reissue pickups were funtional but used a different source for the magnetism. If the magnet pole pieces touch the shoes, and the shoes are a ferrous metal, they may indeeed have a functional effect on the operation of the pickup. Obviously the pickup will still work without the shoes.

I wish Ric would make the HS pick up available, not being a big hihgain pick up fan, I would love to replace the highgain bridge pick up in my 4003's with HS pick ups, the first thing I do when I purchase a 4003 is replace the the neck highgain with a toaster, pretty much the reason why I play my C64 and V63 most of the time and play my 4003's very limitedly, have even considered putting the humbuckers in my 4003's, I like them much better than the highgains.

OK I'm confused.

The description of the 4001C64 (which incidentally has been discontinued!) says:

From Liverpool in 1963 to the present day, this instrument meticulously recreates the greatest ancestor of the industry standard bass guitar. It is authentic in every detail, even to the 'horseshoe' bass pickup of 1931.

http://www.rickenbacker.com/model.asp?model=4001C64


But if I read many of these posts, the pickup is different from the original horseshoe.

Which story is correct?

I'm trying to understand what we've got to gain by parsing RIC's PR stuff and picking apart their protection of their intellectual property.

We're not attorneys. We're not privy to what goes on "on the inside" in Santa Ana. So, why criticize?

Personally, I believe RIC makes incredible stringed instruments, with a lot of soul, and that their instruments are among the best value for money on the planet, besides being knock-out simply gorgeous.

Beyond that celebration and the education I've gotten here since 2005, I'm simply not interested in trying to ascribe motives, read minds, or stir up controversy. What they do and the way they do it might be fun to quarterback, but speculation of this sort has its place on websites like TMZ, but IMO not here on the RRF.

I'm all for shutting this thread down, and keeping a closer watch on future threads as they spiral downward...

+1

Patent and trademark law is what it is. RIC has every right to protect whatever they want to the letter of that law, and they seem to do just that. That's their right whether we like it, agree with it, or whatever. Grousing about how they should do things differently just because someone doesn't like the way thing are is pointless...

We have revisited this topic before with the same outcome. The bottom line, as we have seen before is that RIC will hold the line on its trademarks. There is little point in saying the same thing over and over. I have now closed this thread.