Why is Heritage able to replicate a Les Paul and not run afoul with Gibson?

[vbf]

As a recent member of the "Heritage guitars are pretty dang amazing and seriously give Gibson's a run for their money" club , how is Heritage able to essentially manufacture Les Paul's and not run afoul with Gibson? I placed my H 150 next to one of my Lester's, covered both headstocks, and was unable to discern a difference in their construction and/or looks. I'm really just curious more than anything.

[Genericmusic]

It's all in the head stock. Don't use the open book look, don't get sued.

[mars_hall]

The early H150s had a Gibson horn. Later ones are slightly different

[bolero]

tokai makes gtrs that look more like gibson than anybody...heritage are pretty easily distinguished by the headstock

[vbf]

Thanks, never would have guessed that it's mostly the headstock difference.

[golferwave]

From what I have heard there was a legal agreement between Heritage and Norlin before Henry bought Gibson. At the time of the agreement they altered the horn shape and started using Schaller hardware for the bridges and tailpieces. I'm sure that corporate ageement has been a thorn in Henry's side for 25 years now. Just as he sued PRS for their single cut that was "confusing" all of the guitar buyers out there that thought they were buying a Gibson, he certainly would have unleashed his lawyers against the good ole boys at Heritage.

[brentrocks]

1988/1989 H 150 bodies were and exact copy of a LPS

[JackBaruth]

This situation has been a particular interest of mine because my two guitar collecting passions (Heritage and Electra) have both been involved. I will tell you what I think I know.

 

There are three concepts.

 

Copyright is something you have by right when you create something. It primarily applies to written and creative works. If I write a short story or article, I automatically hold copyright. I don't need to take any action to have it. I can sell it or give it away. It can also expire. Copyright can also extend to ideas within a work. Don't think you can write and sell your own Harry Potter novel, just because it contains your own plot.

 

Trademark is a registered name or logo used to do business. You need to pay and file to register it. "Only A Gibson Is Good Enough" is trademarked.

 

Trade Dress is the generally-accepted form of your product. You have a right to trade dress. If a detergent company creates a brand called "Tiide" and sells it in a box that looks just like a box of Tide, they are going to be penalized in court. There is a very specialized field of law for the makers of generic equivalent drugs and HBA products that tells them how close they can come in copying the look of say, a NyQuil bottle. Trade Dress must be defended in court if you want to keep it. The court has to see that you have continually and vigorously defended the appearance of your product. That way somebody who sold something in a shiny white box back in 1934 but then went out of business doesn't get to come back and have iPod royalties.

 

Is anybody still with me? Good!

 

In 1977, Gibson sued Hoshno, the importer of Ibanez, for bringing in Japanese Les Paul copies that were detailed replicas of the Les Paul, including the headstock and with an Ibanez logo very similar to Gibson's. Gibson had not been protecting the singlecut trade dress, nor was Gibson the first singlecut guitar. The lawsuit was settled out of court. Ibanez modified the headstock.

 

In 2004, Gibson sued PRS regarding their SC245. This time, they took it all the way to court and let the court decide. The headstock wasn't an issue, because PRS didn't copy it. Had they done so, the court would likely have found in Gibson's favor, since Gibson has a legal record of protecting the open-book headstock. Note that Fender has the same record of protecting the Fender headstock but not protecting the Strat and Tele bodies. In other words, Gibson and Fender waited too long to start suing people and the distinctive body designs of the Strat, Tele, LP, 335, 175, and others went into the public domain.

 

The court found in favor of PRS. This set precedent. Singlecuts are now fair game. You simply can't use the LP headstock. You can use the Explorer headstock, Firebird headstock, and others, because Gibson didn't aggressively protect them.

 

I have been told, by someone who is in a position to know, that Heritage was targeted by Gibson some time ago and that they were also a backer of PRS in the singlecut lawsuit.

 

"Gibson Acoustic" happened when Gibson sued the Flatiron Mandolin Company. Faced with the choice of fighting Gibson in court for infringement on Flatiron mandolins or taking Gibson's cash, they chose the latter and became a divison of Gibson.

 

The same thing very well could have happened with Heritage. At that point, it would have become "Gibson Kalamazoo" and it would have been a custom shop with non-union labor. Or it would have been closed forever.

 

Had the PRS lawsuit succeeded, Heritage would be either gone or reduced to making jazzboxes only.

[Guest HRB853370]

Thank you Esq. Baruth for that articulate legal dissertation!

[vbf]

Thank you Esq. Baruth for that articulate legal dissertation!

 

Ditto!!

[kbp810]

I don't get it, Gibson has been making Gibson copies since around 1984... why haven't they sued themselves?

 

 

 

 

 

 

(spoken in jest by an incredibly biased admirer of 225 Parsons Street )

[DetroitBlues]

I'm thankful that Heritage still makes custom shop quality instruments without the pricetag. Plus it helps that they make enough guitars to keep their doors open so we can visit there once a year and "Celebrate the Tradition" with them personally.

[Hfan]

I don't get it, Gibson has been making Gibson copies since around 1984... why haven't they sued themselves?

 

(spoken in jest by an incredibly biased admirer of 225 Parsons Street )

Yuk Yuk good one.

[schundog]

Great explanation, Jack.

[golferwave]

Very good Jack. The thing that puzzles me is why Gibson doesn't seem to be doing much about the proliferation of near exact copies of Les Pauls and other models of Gibson electric and acoustic guitars by Chinese makers. They even use the Gibson name on the headstock and "Made in USA" on the back of the headstock. If you go to Trade Tang they sell them openly and they don't seem to have any problem coming into the country through customs. Weird.

[kidsmoke]

Thanks Jack. Dig a thorough explanation on things.

 

 

1988/1989 H 150 bodies were and exact copy of a LPS

 

Does that make these models the most sought after by those of you collecting? Are there particular year/model combos that you regard as a cut above?

 

I don't get it, Gibson has been making Gibson copies since around 1984... why haven't they sued themselves?

(spoken in jest by an incredibly biased admirer of 225 Parsons Street )

[TalismanRich]

Gibson knows about these. I've heard that numerous Chinese copies have be confiscated. Their government isn't interested in aggressively stopping piracy in China. The factories keep cranking them out with impunity.

[JackBaruth]

Very good Jack. The thing that puzzles me is why Gibson doesn't seem to be doing much about the proliferation of near exact copies of Les Pauls and other models of Gibson electric and acoustic guitars by Chinese makers. They even use the Gibson name on the headstock and "Made in USA" on the back of the headstock. If you go to Trade Tang they sell them openly and they don't seem to have any problem coming into the country through customs. Weird.

 

For this I have two answers: regular and paranoid/conspiracy.

 

The regular answer: Gibson is doing all it can to fight counterfeiting. They recognize that counterfeiters are perhaps the biggest threat to their business. In cooperation with Customs, they aggressively work to find, interdict, and seize counterfeit guitars. However, the Federal Government does not offer intrinsic protection against counterfeiters. As long as both parties (shipper and receiver) are not in violation of the Lacey Act or any other import-specific regulation, they are probably gonna get the stuff in. In the real world of practical legal applications, it is Gibson's problem to find counterfeiters, prove the product is counterfeit, alert the appropriate authorities, and cooperate fully with those authorities. In other words...

 

If Gibson can find the counterfeits before they arrive, alert Customs, and use their attorneys to force Customs to take notice, they can seize the stuff. Once it gets onto US soil, it becomes very difficult to prove that goods are counterfeit, and it most cases Gibson can't legally seize the stuff from the end owners.

 

Now here's the paranoid answer. The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations are different in many ways, but they were alike in that they consistently put the interests of the Chinese government and the major multinationals ahead of the interests of small American businesses. Note that Epiphones are never seized. Only the American Gibson factories were raided. My guess is that if Gibson simply moved everything overseas, they would find that all of a sudden, counterfeit Gibsons are as rare as counterfeit iPhones in this country. The Chinese government and customs people can keep the counterfeits off the boat. They do it for all the companies which are fully invested in China, like Apple and Dell. If Gibson just stopped employing Americans, they would be just fine.

[DetroitBlues]

1988/1989 H 150 bodies were and exact copy of a LPS

 

So that's why you had one that was listed as the Gibson cut.

[bolero]

wow Jack, that is the most thorough post I've ever seen about the lawsuit stuff

 

I'd even read that the "lawsuit" never happened, but that makes a lot of sense

 

thanks for the info!!

[JackBaruth]

wow Jack, that is the most thorough post I've ever seen about the lawsuit stuff

 

I'd even read that the "lawsuit" never happened, but that makes a lot of sense

 

thanks for the info!!

 

The phrase "the lawsuit never happened" or "there was no lawsuit" is commonly used in discussions by collectors of Arai, Electra, Tokai, and other Japanese guitars. It's a rather jaded response to the following eBay ad

 

1960S ELECTRA LES PAUL COPY LAWSUIT GUITAR

 

YOU ARE BIDDING ON A FAMOUS 1960S LES PAUL FROM ELECTRA. AS YOU ALL KNOW GIBSON WENT TO THE SUPREME COURT AND MADE ELECTRA STOP MAKING THEM BECAUSE THEY WERE BETTER THAN REAL LES PAULS. THE VALUE OF THIS GUITAR COULD BE AS MUCH AS $20,000 BUT I AM PUTTING THE BIN AT A VERY REASONABLE 2995. THIS IS THE "LAWSUIT" GUITAR AND THERE ARE VERY FEW OF THEM.

 

If, like me, you have "Electra guitar" and "Westone guitar" and "Matsumoku guitar" as search terms in eBay, you get sick of seeing this junk.

 

When Ibanez/Hoshno --- who were the sole defendants --- settled, the other players quickly changed their headstocks and/or logos where appropriate lest Gibson come after them as well. In the case of Electra, they had already changed the logo away from a Gibson-alike logo, so all they had to do was change the headstock, which they did twice over the course of the next few years. They had already begun a series of unique Electra designs like the Outlaw so by 1981 their model line was about 60% original stuff.

 

There was a similar situation regarding Fender and G&L but I don't know the details.

 

Incidentally, those of you who want a beater/gigging Les Paul style guitar may find the "wave headstock" setneck Electras to be of interest. They are all made very, very well. They *did* use maple flame veneers, as Epiphone does today, but in all other respects they are fantastic and they sound bad-ass.

 

The 1977-1983 Electra Workingman series guitars are fundamentally bolt-neck LP Specials and they are the best guitar $200 can buy on eBay, period, point blank. They all have high-wind PAF-style pickups, some with "unbalanced coils" a la Burstbucker.

[mark555]

tokai makes gtrs that look more like gibson than anybody...heritage are pretty easily distinguished by the headstock

 

Got one!!

[JackBaruth]

More hilarity:

 

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/archive/index.php/t-1500182.html

 

Search for "lawsuit" for a lawsuit you never knew existed:

 

THE ONE WHERE FENDER SUED GIBSON ON AMPS

[mark555]

I thought Gibson taking PRS to court over the single cut issue had more to do with Gibson knowing full well that PRS make a vastly superiour guitar every time and the arrival if a PRS single cut on the scene would show the les paul for what it is - a guitar with inconsistant production issues that is vastly over priced for what it is.

 

With regard to the H150 Vs the Les Paul, the 150 does have quite a few more subtle differences, the main one being that the 150 is a better guitar.

[cod65]

 

For this I have two answers: regular and paranoid/conspiracy.

 

The regular answer: Gibson is doing all it can to fight counterfeiting. They recognize that counterfeiters are perhaps the biggest threat to their business. In cooperation with Customs, they aggressively work to find, interdict, and seize counterfeit guitars. However, the Federal Government does not offer intrinsic protection against counterfeiters. As long as both parties (shipper and receiver) are not in violation of the Lacey Act or any other import-specific regulation, they are probably gonna get the stuff in. In the real world of practical legal applications, it is Gibson's problem to find counterfeiters, prove the product is counterfeit, alert the appropriate authorities, and cooperate fully with those authorities. In other words...

 

If Gibson can find the counterfeits before they arrive, alert Customs, and use their attorneys to force Customs to take notice, they can seize the stuff. Once it gets onto US soil, it becomes very difficult to prove that goods are counterfeit, and it most cases Gibson can't legally seize the stuff from the end owners.

 

Now here's the paranoid answer. The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations are different in many ways, but they were alike in that they consistently put the interests of the Chinese government and the major multinationals ahead of the interests of small American businesses. Note that Epiphones are never seized. Only the American Gibson factories were raided. My guess is that if Gibson simply moved everything overseas, they would find that all of a sudden, counterfeit Gibsons are as rare as counterfeit iPhones in this country. The Chinese government and customs people can keep the counterfeits off the boat. They do it for all the companies which are fully invested in China, like Apple and Dell. If Gibson just stopped employing Americans, they would be just fine.

interesting reply. I agree with you on our leaders putting Chinese interest above American interest- consistently for decades. But Epiphones are not seized because they are owned by Gibson. I would like to know what portion of Henry's earnings come from Epiphone guitars, made in Qingdao, China. I would venture to say quite a large percentage. With all the Gibson raid hoopla you don't hear a lot about that. I guess you could say that Gibson was 'forced' to start off-shoring to stay competitive. Curiously Heritage didn't feel compelled to follow the same route- and in my book they are better for it- truly American in spirit - but you don't hear THAT on the news. I recently pointed this out on Charlie Daniels' facebook page. I also mentioned Heritage. It was noted that the troops were sent Epiphone guitars- that is great and all, but doesn't anybody think this is a bit ironic ?

 

http://www.epiphone.com/news.asp?NewsID=403

 

re: counterfeit iphone analogy: 'parts' seized recently in the U.S.:

 

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/10/iphone_parts_counterfeit_walnu.php

 

I think the relatively short lifecycle and technical complexity of an iphone model would probably make it prohibitively expensive, even in China, to make a working copy of an iphone that behaved as good or better than the real thing- not to mention the registration-serialization-over-internet issues that would crop up instantly. If you should find a 'counterfeit' iphone- it is probably a paperweight at best. It's just not the same thing as replicating a guitar or a piece of art. We're talking (ahem) apples and oranges here. What was seized in the above-mentioned article were parts like covers and chargers- things that would be relatively easy to construct and pass as the real thing- with complete functionality. An apple product is not so much a singular object as a 'lifestyle'- not really in the same league as a Les Paul copy. You can buy an iphone charger cable at Apple or Best Buy for 20-30$, or an imitation for 1$, shipped on ebay direct from China. Either one is made in China.