Gibson sues PRS

A Surprise Left

posted this at "other music" as well...

it is claimed that the PRS singlecut is a copy of a Gibson

from PRS website;

In 2000 PRS guitars introduced the Singlecut model at the NAMM show in Los Angeles. This instrument received numerous awards world-wide and is well accepted in the market place.
In our opinion the PRS Singlecut was, and is, a design that shows every aspect and detail of what we believe a PRS instrument to be.

One of our competitors filed a lawsuit against us contesting the design of the Singlecut based on the competitor’s registered trademark. In this still pending litigation, the trial court issued an injunction, preventing us from manufacturing, distributing, selling, promoting or offering PRS Singlecut designs in the United States of America.

What we are doing -

After receiving the above notice, we immediately ceased our production, our distribution and marketing of all Singlecut designs manufactured in the United States. We have also stopped sales and distribution of SE model Singlecuts in the US.
Immediately and until further notice we are removing all references and photographs pertaining to Singlecut type products from our website and printed material. We will not be shipping catalogs, pricelists, DVD’s and accessory brochures until revised literature is available.

Thank You -

We appreciate your patience, understanding and support as we go through this process.

exhausted

i still say anyone that actually has the money to buy a les paul or a PRS singlecut, knows the difference. it's rather silly in my opinion.

djyman15

well it is ridiculous, but you gotta remember, the original les pauls were very much based off of the double-cutaway Les Pauls Jr, which Paul grew up loving. I actually saw Chris from The Living End play one of the double-cuts, sounded great.

mccreadyisgod

The first time I ever saw a PRS was in the hands of Carlos Santana, and I believed it was a Gibson Double-Cut Les Paul.

That was before nu metal came along and stole the good name of PRS...

Pacomc79

what's hilarious is that this is about the Singlecut being a better guitar than the shit that gibson is chunking out lately and it's taking a chunk out of Gibson's wallet.

In fact blatent copies like Tokai's beautiful Love Rock series are built of exactly the same quality that Nashville's been building.

If you guys look up Ted McCarty's history you'll find out that he was the president of Gibson during the time that such innovations as the 57 Classic humbucking patent applied for (PAF) pickup was invented as well as the Les Paul and many other uber famous designs. Seth Lover, Les Paul and countless other famous guitar minds all worked with Ted McCarty who up until his death served as an advisor and mentor to Paul Reed Smith helping to make the "McCarty" models including the singlecut be outstanding guitars.

Basically Paul Reed Smith has constructed a better sounding, more comfortable, more easily playable guitar than Gibson and thanks to a few notable musicians taking notice PRS's are becoming extremely popular, so much so that they are taking a giagantic chunk out of the gibson market. That's what this suit is all about.

All it would really take is for Gibson to become what it was in the 50's and have real innovation as well as above average quality control. Instead they spend more time and money in court suing people so there's not much time left over to really build as good a product as they could and should for a $2000+ dollar guitar. The name on the headstock is primarily what they sell nowadays.

Personally I think the PRS Singlecut is far superior to a Les Paul if only they would put the lockers on it instead of those horrid Klusons that Gibson is so damn fond of.


Oh and thanks to gibson for making Singlecuts that much more expensive on ebay.

Fuckin blows too. I really like the single cut SE's with P-90's

mendicant_1

i personally don't care for either "les paul" guitars,....and i don't really like PRS product,...but there should be the compitition so gibson has to make a better product than they've put out in the recent years,...but they'd rather spend money on putting other people out of business than focusing on making a superior product,...they did that to ibanez in the '70's

dont_go_on_me

I remember when Gibson sued ESP because their Explorers had the same body as the Gibson models. They filed the suit many years after ESP started producing them, mainly because ESP's explorers were by far outselling Gibson's. As it turned out, Gibson won and ESP had to change their explorer body to a shitty jagged egde.