BigSteve22 said:
How the hell do you patent cream colored bobbins or the abbreviation for Patent Applied For? :dontknow:
You can't, so they didn't get a patent. They got a trademark, which is different.
Patents are a government-sanctioned monopoly awarded to an entity that confers ownership of a new, unique design or invention which protects the owner from competition for a given length of time. Currently, that's 17 years from date of issue or 20 years from date of application.
Trademarks are not necessarily new or unique. They're simply words, graphics or arrangements that are registered as being associated with a particular company. They're
usually unique, but not always. For instance, we all know "windows" as those openings on your house that let in bugs or allow you to throw aggravating/dysfunctional computers out of. But, Microsoft named their operating system after them (most likely to remind people where to throw the invariably bug-infested computers that use it) and trademarked the name, its appearance, and the associated logo. Now you can't name anything computer-related "Windows" unless you want an army of lawyers to latch onto you like a deranged starving pit bull and sue you into insolvency.
So, while DiMarzio didn't invent their pickup color scheme or the PAF reference to it, they (and the USPTO) did feel that there was a recognizable association there that deserved commercial protection.
It seems beyond silly now, but as you may or may not recall, back in the '70s
Lawrence DiMarzio was one of the first aftermarket pickup manufacturers, along with
Seymour Duncan. They pretty much had the field to themselves for a while, and were doing quite well with it. Success breeds competition, and here we are today with 187,322 different pickup manufacturers out there who all make a PAF that "really, really sounds like a PAF! No, really!"
Of course, the first order of business for any successful company with two uncommitted nickels to rub together is to prevent the development of other successful companies in the same field. Patents and trademarks work well for that, and being government sanctioned, they're particularly useful and powerful tools. Outside of death, in a country where litigation is more popular than marriage, few things are quite as frightening as a lawyer with a 7 figure retainer and no leash. So, DiMarzio trademarked the coil color scheme and abbreviation to prevent their competition from using them. It sorta worked, in that nobody else is using that color scheme or abbreviation. That it prevented or even slowed down anyone else from gaining market share is ludicrous. What did happen is their name gets dragged around in the mud from time to time (like now) for not working and playing well with others.
Oddly enough, trademarks were never intended to protect a company's bottom line. They were created to protect the consumer. They identify a product as only available from a known source, so good, bad or indifferent, you can predict a level of quality and performance. For example, a lot of companies make screwdrivers. But, there's a lotta difference in their quality, so you don't want to be tricked into buying one that says "Craftsman" when it's actually made by "Stevie's Stampings" out of something that only resembles steel.
arty07:
