The lawyer has even gone as far as to say that little separates Gibson’s current management from the previous ones.
#DEAN GUITAR HISTORY LICENSE#
“I hear talks of license deals, but that effectively means they are not collaborating.” “They’ll say they’re looking for collaboration, but I don’t see that,” Bienstock said. In July, the guitar giant launched the Authorized Partnership Program that allowed other luthiers to license its designs – a move that the lawyer questioned in the interview. He feels there’s also an anti-competitive elementīienstock has not bought into Gibson’s claims that it is adopting a more “collaborative” approach. No one would agree with that, because everybody does and has been manufacturing it, too. “You also need to say that no one else manufactures or sells it. “If you are going to trademark a guitar shape, what you have to be saying is everyone looks at that design and recognises your company as the only source,” Bienstock said. Gibson had indeed sued a few companies during this period, but the sheer volume of similarly shaped guitars worked against it. When Gibson’s trademarks were approved in the US in the 90s, the industry did not collectively rally against the development, recalled Bienstock. As does the widespread use of the body shapes That led to Gibson filing for trademarks on shapes such as the Flying V and Explorer. Gibson sued, but there was no formal agreement on what Heritage could and could not manufacture and sell. Heritage Guitars at the time continued to build “exactly what they were making before”. This was in 1985, a period that Bienstock considers to be a low point in Gibson’s history. According to Bienstock, Gibson only began filing for trademarks in the US on its designs after it had sold its Kalamazoo, Michigan factory to the people who would end up founding Heritage Guitars.
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