:shrugs:Īs far as Rics go, even tho I have small hands/fingers, I find their fretboard width to be a tight. So I guess it's legal when money is involved. Anyway, are they doing it based on a copyright? I'm pretty sure you can't copyright a guitar shape.Īnd yes, I have had my designs 'copied and altered', but in that case a larger company bought out the financial principals of the company I worked for, and our designs got sent over to Sweden (but none of the employees were taken, dammit). (And today you cannot patent a guitar shape). But Fender never stopped making the Tele or Strat.was it just that Leo, et al, were lazy in defending design-rights? And I thought that patents (in general) have a lifespan of 7 to 14 years. 1 FenderRick Croatia Ok so i've been meaning to buy a rickenbacker soon (or atleast a copy of it) GAS again -.-' so im wondering what is the best Rick copy you have ever tried,all can come in consideration (japanese copies in particular from the 70's),bolt on's ,neck throughs etc. mention of Eddie Rickenbacker, America's Ace of Aces in the Great War. this is how Matsumoko got into those designs.perhaps the single-cut LP falls into that same category. I know that Gibson effectively gave up patent rights on certain models (eg Flying V, Explorer) when they discontinued then re-issued them. I've often wondered how Ric's legal grounds differ from those of Fender and Gibson who used the old, 50's/60's patent-laws which safeguarded guitar designs.
