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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 136
Location: Parkersburg, WV | Google has added a utility on Patents. There are several concerning Ovations such as the A/E pickup patent from the early '70s:
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT3712951&id=dIo0AAAAEBAJ&dq=o...
Maybe somewhat geeky, but interesting.
Patsbro |
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Joined:
November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | This is reeeeeally bad news for me... and all those things I thought of first. |
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Joined:
December 2005
Posts: 149
Location: New York, NY | Man, Google thinks of everything! That's awesome! |
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Joined:
July 2002
Posts: 1900
| So, J. Rickard filed this patent in Dec. 1971 and received it in Jan. 1973. And now all the U.S. guitar manufacturers send him royalties if they use it. Is that how it works?.. |
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Joined:
August 2004
Posts: 604
Location: Tampa, FL | When you obtain a patent, you get 14 years of protection from the date issuance. That can be renewed once for an additional 14 years and after that it's public domain. The original intent (at least the stated original intent) of the patent concept was to incent individuals to educate others as to how to practice their inventions. I've had a couple of patents issued but none of any commercial significance. |
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Joined:
July 2002
Posts: 1900
| Lets see now.. 28 and 73 is 101, so all the guitar manufacturers are in the clear since 2001.. :) I've thought it might be interesting to study patent/copyright law, especially as it pertains to musical composition, arrangment, and recording. |
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Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 4827
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Copyright law is substantially different from patent law. So far only Irving Berlin has managed to outlive his copyrights.
And then there's the tragedy of people like Lennon/McCartney and John Fogerty who signed away their rights or were outright ripped off. |
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Joined:
July 2002
Posts: 1900
| I've heard of the 'public doman' description, but they say in England even the king james bible is copyrighted, so it sounds like maintaining an open-ended copyright would require a massive amount of persistance over the years.. |
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Google Patents