DENNISNDODIE - Posted - 11/19/2009:  02:11:53

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Do specific manufacturers have patents for a specific sounding tonerings? Or is a patent more like the enginering of a tonering and not the sound. I pretty sure stelling tonerings are patented. How about other manufacturers? I am also wondering if a manufacturer can put any unidentified tonering in a banjo and call it buy there brand name.

desert rose - Posted - 11/19/2009:  02:56:34

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Any patentable aspects of the traditional mastertone tonering ran out over half a century ago.

Read up on what a patent is and what you have to present to be considered for a patent.

Simply changing the formula counts as nothing. Thats not a patentable item in the eyes of the US Patent and Trademark office. Its the engineering and design thats patentable not the sound. You could give your original sounding tonering a cute name and you could Trademark the name, but not the formula.

Geoff Stelling invented a ground breaking totally new way to shape and mount a tonering, this qualified for a patent, as it had never been done before and showed fresh new thinking.

Geoffs patent has been expired for a number of years not, they are only good for about fifteen years

One thing about patents is they become public documents so if you did patent it everybody in the world would know the formula by looking at your patent and they could copy it easily as long as they didnt advertise it

Things like the formulas for Coca Cola are not patented they are big company secrets

Scott

DENNISNDODIE - Posted - 11/19/2009:  04:05:38

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Im not a builder or manufacterer and Im not trying to get a patent. I am wondering if a banjo builder can put any unidentified tone ring in the banjo and call it there own brand example I buy a new banjo from (insert builder name) they say it has a (insert builder name tonering) in the banjo but it has no identifiable markings saying it is what they say it is. Could it be they put in a cheap brass tone ring mass bought from a foreign manufacturer and call it there own. If builders can do that I think its shameful.

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Edited by - DENNISNDODIE on 11/19/2009 04:11:42

BobbyE - Posted - 11/19/2009:  04:14:26

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I don't think a reputable dealer would want to try this because there are so many knowledgable people out there that when the word got out what they had done they would (1) be branded as less than ethical and (2) be known to produce an inferior product. As hard as it is to get in the business and establish oneself, I can't see anyone running that risk. Many of the smaller builders will identify the tone ring or allow you to choose the ring that you want. Those who produce more, like Gibson, identify the ring or it is commonly known what they are. I guess one could do anything though if they were that foolish.

Bobby Elliott

vtyankee5 - Posted - 11/19/2009:  04:49:07

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A sound can be trademarked. Harley Davidson lost the chug battle due to opposition from competitors. Other companies have been more successful in registering their distinctive sounds: MGM and their lion's roar; the NBC chimes; famous basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters and their theme song "Sweet Georgia Brown"; Intel and the three-second chord sequence used with the Pentium processor; THX and its "Deep Note"; Federal Signal Corporation and the sound of their "Q2B" fire truck siren; AT&T and the spoken letters "AT&T" accompanied by music; RKO with a combined moving image and sound mark depicting the RKO Pictures radio tower transmitting a Morse-code like signal; and 20th Century Fox with the very famous fanfare composed by Alfred Newman.

Patents can get awarded quietly without opposition. Deering is a perfect example. The Deering Presto style tailpiece is patented based on the fact the Deering tailpiece will not crack. Looks like a presto to me. Rims were patented due to no opposition from competitive companies. Function based on sound.

Coca Cola benefited by not patenting their formula. The formula would have been disclosed to the public if they did. Coca Cola or any company are protected by trade secret laws. Reverse engineering or industrial espionage becomes a civil suit where usually deep pockets prevail.

The employees who know the company trade secret can be bound via contracts which last a lifetime while patents expire.

beegee - Posted - 11/19/2009:  05:49:39

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quote:

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Originally posted by desert rose

Geoffs patent has been expired for a number of years not, they are only good for about fifteen years

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I wonder why no major manufacturer or importer has copied the Stelling wedge-fit design?

quote:

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Things like the formulas for Coca Cola are not patented they are big company secrets

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And nobody has been able to successfully duplicate the Coca-Cola flavor, but I'm sure some of the top chemists in the world have tried to analyze it. Didn't the original have cocaine in it? anyway, I like Dr. Pepper better.....Pepsi was born 35 miles from here and I don't like it at all...too sweet, no bite.

diarmaid - Posted - 11/19/2009:  07:07:59

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[quote]Originally posted by beegee
[I wonder why no major manufacturer or importer has copied the Stelling wedge-fit design?
[quote]

I think most other makers/importers are still too busy copying the gibson mastertone design, for which parts are plentiful and easily available and where making a banjo is simplified into buying premade parts, making a neck and assembling the other parts...probably because its easier....less risky and requires less thinking or imagination.


the few makers that are doing something different are making their own custom parts or having those parts custom made.

by the way, in my opinion irn bru is the best soft drink available, and i think its still more popular in scotland than coca cola

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Edited by - diarmaid on 11/19/2009 07:11:40

beegee - Posted - 11/19/2009:  07:28:27

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The essence of the question is: "Why, if the Stelling design(with patent expired) is so great,is nobody making banjos based on that design, regardless of the manufacturing constraints." I'm not knocking Stelling. They are fine banjos. It must be that the cost and effort to replicate the Stelling doesn't result in a product that would offer any advantage over the easily replicated Gibson style banjo.

Bill Rogers - Posted - 11/19/2009:  12:34:35

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I agree; Stelling has its followers, but the Gibson "pre-war" sound has the hearts and minds of by far the most bluegrass banjo players. Kudos to Geoff Stelling for not doing the same old thing. He has developed a significant niche for his banjos, but not enough of one to make emulation economically viable.

uncle.fogey - Posted - 11/19/2009:  13:56:07

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I said in a post on another subject that Bluegrass is a traditional style of music and is defined by very severe constraints - go outside the constraints and it ain't bluegrass. You have to have a D-28(OTE), an F-5(OTE) and a Mastertone(OTE). Thank God for Ralph Stanley and Doug Dillard, or we'd be limiting the banjo to flatheads.

The extreme popularity of the Gibson Mastertone design for bluegrass music has spawned a whole industry devoted to capturing the elusive sound of the early "pre-war" models. There is nothing wrong with this, it's great fun, but it makes it EXTERMELY difficult to do any serious innovation in bluegrass banjo design - the whole thing is about the quest for the Holy Grail, of which there is only one.

desert rose - Posted - 11/19/2009:  16:17:49

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Dennis

To answer your question, the banjo world is so very very small, anyone doing what you suggest would not survive long.

You build your reputation, thats equal in importance to the quality of your instrument

For the same reason implying such a thing without concrete proof could seriously hurt someones ability to feed his family

Scott

DENNISNDODIE - Posted - 11/21/2009:  08:00:02

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Im guessing here. Im assuming it takes alot of money to make a tonering Im not sure if they are poured into a mold of if they are machined from a block or stamped on a press.If they are poured from a mold my guess would be that that process would be extremely expensive for a small builder to do. My guess is they buy there tonerings from suppliers who make alot of them. Im also guessing that a builder has a metal formula to be able to call it there own. If this is the process why wouldnt they also brand the tonering as there own ie put there stamp on it thats what I would do if I were a builder. I would want potential customers to know thats mine and not a generic brand with no way to identify it. Just a few thoughts.

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Edited by - DENNISNDODIE on 11/21/2009 08:01:12

Bradskey - Posted - 11/21/2009:  09:37:26

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Dennis I know some small builders have created their own tone rings. No they don't generally have the setup to produce them on their own with consistency and in quantity for their customers. But they can supply the formula and the design to a company like First Quality who will produce the tone rings for them. And they HAVE given the rings a name and branded them their own. It has been done. But in most other instances the builder will use a popular off-the-shelf brand tone ring and tell you up front what it is.

uncle.fogey - Posted - 11/21/2009:  17:35:22

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Developing a new product is a long and arduous task, and you want to be sure you have someone who will want to buy the product once you've invested all that time and money. As I said, the bluegrass music community is not scouring the countryside looking for a new sound or banjo design. If you wanted to develop a new tone ring design for a bluegrass banjo, you'd have to identify who the customer base would be. Take some surveys, do some market research and you'd find that 90 percent of all the potential buyers would like something that looks like and sounds like a pre-war Mastertone. My hat's off to Stelling for managing to get a piece of the market share. Vega tried to do it in the 60s-70s and they had a famous name and a kick-butt tone ring design but it was a commercial failure because it just wasn't a Mastertone. If Gibson's patents were still in force it would be a different story, but they're not and it isn't.
All this business of re-patenting and copyrighting things like Presto tailpieces that won't crack and Gibson script logos, or "the Gibson" as it appeared in 1925, is just a way to provide some feeble rationale by which the lawyers of these companies can intimidate and threaten smaller builders with lawsuits, hoping they'll back down rather than go to court.

There's an old saying, and I'll try to quote it "If you set an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters, one would eventually produce the exact wording of Keats' "Ode to a Grecian Urn" - you could then copyright it and nobody would be allowed to copy it --- but you could always copy Keats."

Hotrodtruck - Posted - 11/22/2009:  07:43:52

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IMO, I don't think Bluegrass music is searching for a new sound. Banjo evolution to a new and different sound would survive only in a new or different genre, such as World music, some kind of fusion music, or something for which there is no current name. I would think someone like Bela Fleck would be the prospective customer base (if there were enough like him).