Why Can't We Be Friends? Guitar Lawsuits; Current, and Past

Why Can't We Be Friends - War

Why can’t we be friends?

Well, Trademark infringement seems to be the prevailing reason among guitar manufacturers. 

Recently a Youtube video by Gibson Guitars surfaced, then was quickly taken down.

Mark Agnessi from Gibson Guitars

In it, the tag line was “Play Authentic”, and it featured Gibson spokesman, Mark Agnessi urging players to play a real Gibson brand instrument.

Ironic 1980's Epiphone by Gibson 

He suggested that the new Gibson management would be coming after other companies that used guitar shapes that Gibson deemed to be their property. He also issued a message to film and media companies that taped over Gibson logos on the companies guitars that were used as props in films, television shows, and on social media, asking them to stop taping over the Gibson logo.

Can You Spot The Difference?

The video also brought to the forefront that Gibson had filed suit against Dean Guitars’ owner Armadillo Enterprises through a court in Texas, and was asking for a jury trial. Dean has subsequently sent a letter to its dealers citing the case as baseless and without merit.

1916 Martin Ditson 1960 Gibson J-45

This resulted in a great number of social media platforms responding by releasing pictures of older non-Gibson brands, including guitars, and mandolins that have the same open book headstock shape, and it has been noted that the Gibson J-45 guitars shape, which was introduced in 1942, is exactly the same as a Martin Dreadnoughts guitars body shape, which was introduced in 1916.

The original lawsuit era came about because in 1970 Ibanez guitars were making what they referred to as “replica” or “tribute” guitars that were pretty good resemblances of Gibson, Fender, and Rickenbacker instruments.

Medley Music - Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania

A music store owner, named Harry Rosenbloom quite innocently was trying to make a living selling guitars, and other musical instruments at his store, Medley Music, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Mr. Rosenbloom tried his best to procure a Martin Guitar franchise.

The Martin factory was only 70 miles away. Each request was turned down. So in 1964 he hired two luthiers, that were German immigrants, and started building his own guitars, under the Elger brand. Elger was a combination of his children’s names. I am told they were great guitars; essentially handmade, and affordable.

By 1965 he determined this venture was way too costly, and he began importing guitars from the Hoshino Gakki Gen factory in Japan that were branded Elger. Hoshino Gakki had already acquired the brand name Ibanez Salvador, which was eventually shortened to just Ibanez,

Ibanez Replica "Lawsuit" Guitars

In 1971 the Hoshino Gakki company bought out Mr. Rosenbloom’s brand name, Elger, as well as his store (it may have been a sublease) and used the facility for quality control, and shipping of their brands in the United States. Although those Ibanez guitars were pretty good copies, not everything was spot on. But their guitars were far less expensive than an American made instruments.

June 9, 1977 Letter to Gibson Dealers

On June 28th, 1977 Gibson parent company, Norlin filed a lawsuit againg Elger (Ibanez) in Philadelphia Federal District Court. Prior to this, Norlin had sent cease and desist letters to Elger/Ibanez, but did not receive a response. Norlin claimed trademark infringement based on the headstock design in its letters, and in the suit.


Ibanez finally made an out-of-court settlement with Gibson/Norlin and agreed to stop copying the Gibson headstock and using names similar to Gibson models on their instruments.

Headstock design

Interestingly enough, this settlement agreement only applied to Gibson’s unique headstock design. Ibanez and other offshore companies continued to produce guitars with bodies similar to those that Gibson and other American companies had been building for years.

1950 Fender Broadcaster

In an earlier, and perhaps more sensible, and more importantly, the far less litigious days of 1950, Leo Fender and his California company had designed what was perhaps the world’s first electric Spanish-style guitar, which they named The Broadcaster.

1950 Gretsch Broadkaster Drum Kit

The Gretsch Company located in Brooklyn, New York was selling a drum kit that they called The Broadkaster. They had already been granted a trademark for that name.  Gretsch politely asked Fender to quit using the Broadcaster name, and Fender agreed.

1951 Fender
Nocaster

Subsequent guitars of the same design did not have any name on them and were known as “Nocasters”, until late 1951 when Fender named the guitar, The Telecaster.

1958 Jazzmaster

In 1958 Fender offered a brand new guitar they called the Fender Jazzmaster. This was a unique instrument that featured several impressive innovations including an offset waist design that was meant to let the instrument fit better on the players lap.

1963 Gibson Firebird V

Five years later, in 1963 Gibson guitars hired Ray Dietrich, a well known automobile designer, to create a new guitar for the company using similar features to those he incorporated in his auto bodies.

1963 Firebird vs 1958 Jazzmaster

His design became known as The Firebird. This unique guitar had a six-on-a-side headstock, and an offset waist. And though it was a totally different guitar than the Jazzmaster, it is no stretch of the imagination that the Firebird's shape resembled a Jazzmaster that was flipped over.



Though no legal documents exist, it is rumored that Fender threatened to sue Gibson over the Firebird design.  Gibson went ahead and halted production, and possibly happily redesigned the guitar.

Gibson may have seen this as a good excuse to make manufacturing changes to the Firebird. There were several factors that made the original Firebird very difficult to build.

1963 Firebird V

The Firebird line had a neck-thru body design, with added wings. Plus the original Gibson Firebird humbucking pickups were smaller versions of standard Gibson humbucking pickups, but were unique in that inside each of their smaller bobbins was contained an AlNiCo bar magnet, and those pickups were built without any specific bobbin fasteners.  The bobbins were held onto the frame during the wax potting process. Then a solid metal cover that was soldered to the frame base. There were no screw poles on the original Firebird pickups.

The tuners were atypical. Since the six-on-a-side headstock was reversed, banjo style tuners with planetery gears were used instead of the usual, and less expensive Kluson guitar tuners.

1965 Firebird III & 1963 Jazzmaster

All of these features were expensive to produce. so in 1965 Gibson discontinued the original design. On the new version, Gibson reversed the bodies design, opted for a more practical glued in neck, and used P-90 pickups. Ironically the new design looked more like a Jazzmaster than the original. But Fender did not raise any further objections.

1985 PRS

Around 1985 guitar builder Paul Reed Smith launched his company with some very unique, and well made instruments. Most of the companies guitars featured double cutaway bodies.

But in 2000 Paul Reed Smith aka PRS offered the Ted McCarty single cutaway model. Ironically, the retired Ted McCarty was once Gibson Guitar's President. Gibson, now lead by Henry Juszkiewicz was upset that this model resembled their Les Paul design, so in 2004 Gibson filed suit in a Federal court and an injunction was issued against Paul Reed Smith.

Les Paul - PRS Ted McCarty SC

In 2005 the suit went to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which overturned the injunction on the grounds that by the time Gibson filed for a single cutaway trademark in 1987, the design was alreay ubiquitous, and therefore generic.

Court documents stated that, “only and idiot” would mistake a PRS Single Cut for a Les Paul guitar.

2010 Paper Jamz toy guitars

In 2010, a toy company called WOWWEE USA came up with a toy guitar that they called Paper Jamz. This toy was made of study plastic, only around a quarter of an inch thick, and guaranteed to make the child playing it an instant rock star.

It had a small electronic unit built into the body to produce the sounds on the touch sensitive neck. The company also made amplifiers, synthesizers, and drum kits. But Paper Jamz guitar bodies were images of Gibson’s SG, Les Paul, Flying Vee, and Explorer designs.

Me Rockin' out on a Paper Jamz Guitar

The same year Paper Jamz were introduced, Gibson Guitars was granted a request for an injunction against WOWWEE USA, and its retailers, which included a number of large American retailers.

In January of 2011 the case was dismissed with prejudice (permanently) by a Federal judge.

WOWWEE paid Gibson an undisclosed sum to license the design of Gibson guitars. WOWWEE ceased production in 2011.

John Hall - CEO Rickenbacker

Years ago I used to visit a now defunct web site called Liszts which had a chat room called Alt-Rickenbacker. Rickenbacker’s owner, John Hall, was quite a prominent poster on the site.

He seemed happy to answer all questions about his companies guitars. However he was quick to suggest that he would sue any American company, store, or website selling offshore manufactured copies of Rickenbacker instruments.

But there are still foreign companies making “replicas” of Rickenbackers guitar, as well as those of other US companies, and even offer them in kit forms.

Chinese made Rickenbacker replica

I can attest that the fake Rickenbackers are far inferior to the real deal. Some of the fakes have bolt-on necks, and none have Rickenbacker's neck-thru bodies, or pickups.  Save your money.

Rickenbacker guitars, Gibson guitars, and high end Fender guitars can be very expensive, but if you buy one, you'll have a worthwhile musical instrument that you can treasure.

Chinese Trumpet and
Bach Stradivarius Trumpet
 - you might not see the difference,
but you can hear the difference

It is my opinion is that guitars, and other musical instruments such as brass instruments, violins, woodwinds, and drums have been made with the same inherent shapes for years, even centuries. Few changes, if any have occurred.


There are manufacturers that have added their own input to these designs, especially with electric guitars.

2019 Epiphone Les Paul
2019 Gibson Les Paul
- $2000 price difference

Additionally most U.S. companies, including Gibson, have relented to companies from Asia that were building copy guitars, by putting their own footprint into these foreign markets and offering their own versions of traditional American guitars that are built in Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, and other Asian Pacific countries. Fender and Gibson have built affordable versions of their products under the Squier, and Epiphone guitar brand. The USA made version are undoubtedly superior, but for many people these instruments are a viable alternate.

Mark Agnessi from Gibson might have a point about Gibson guitars being of superior quality, and perhaps the new Gibson versions are  even better than those made during the last decade. But in my opinion his rallying against other manufacturers using traditional Gibson shapes amounts to merely idle threats.

$69 Music-Yo
Kramer Strat copy

Someone might want to remind Mr. Agnessi of a Gibson Guitar Company online subsidiary called Music-Yo that existed at the start of this decade which sold inferior copies of Kramer and Steinberger guitars. Those Kramer guitars that Gibson sold looked exactly like Fender instruments, but they were made of plywood. The pickups and wiring on these instruments were far inferior, and the nut and fret markers were made of PVC. But Gibson did make money selling thousands of these Fender knock-offs.

Click on the links under the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.
©UniqueGuitar Publications

July 7th, 2019 - Since writing this article Gibson has issued a new statement in response to the back lash stating they are moving from "confrontation to collaboration".  It is explained in this video.