Jacques Pedals?

[DAJE]

I got interested in trademarks a while back - I've seen too many people claim to have "copyrighted" band names etc, which I knew wasn't correct.

My non-lawyer understanding is: if you do business under a name, or use a distinctive name for a product, then trademark applies even if you haven't formally registered the name. However, you need to assert ownership of the name, to defend your claim to it. Otherwise you lose your claim.

For a standard vocab word like "Trinity", no one is going to get exclusive rights to it without a major corporate legal team on the job. So M Jacques is - as you might expect - talking merde.

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

If this guy is that upset about people using the word “trinity” on pedals, he will probably shit a brick if someone released DIY PCBs of his shit. That being said, let’s see what the hype is about haha

I can't wait for them to show up in the wishlist thread. Ooooh I think some spite builds are brewing. I can feel it in my bones.

 

[Robert]

Hmm, these do seem like they deserve a little attention...

They sort of remind me of Rocktek pedals, which weren't exactly known for being the highest quality.

 

[drgonzo1969]

Haha yes!

I can't wait for them to show up in the wishlist thread. Ooooh I think some spite builds are brewing.View attachment 50905

spite adds tone!

 

[Feral Feline]

Reminds me of when Make'n Music was getting Fender to make a Tele-Master for the shop and some RC-Planes Co had ™'d the term "TELEMASTER" and forced Making Music to stop using that monicker. Like a guitar-head or RC-nut wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two Tele-Masters.
[EDIT: looks like MnM might be using the Telemaster monicker after all ‚ if so then good for them]

@DAJE is on the money regarding the legalities. (*I'm not a lawyer, but I know someone who is and regularly discuss Trademarks and ethics vs legalities of cloning pedals etc). "Ownership" is why Rick'n'Fokker is so aggressive in the first 3 letters of asserting; Gibson lost in court to asserting its dominance to the shape of the single-cutaway and PRS continues to make LP-like shaped guitars. Thank goodness Gibbleson lost or Gretsch and several other makers might have had problems with single-cuts.

Bayer didn't assert itself for "Aspirin" which can now be spelled in all lower-case "aspirin";
Kleenex still needs a capital "K" and if it's not a genuine Kleenex-tissue then it has to be a "facial-tissue" or just "tissue" but not "Kleenex".

Off the top of my head, there's at least 3 songs all called simply "Jump" and probably a lot more.



So...

... if a few of Jacques Pedals were to be traced, what would be the wholly Trinity uhm, TRIFECTA?

 

[Harry Klippton]

Reminds me of when Make'n Music was getting Fender to make a Tele-Master for the shop and some RC-Planes Co had ™'d the term "TELEMASTER" and forced Making Music to stop using that monicker. Like a guitar-head or RC-nut wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two Tele-Masters.

@DAJE is on the money regarding the legalities. (*I'm not a lawyer, but I know someone who is and regularly discuss Trademarks and ethics vs legalities of cloning pedals). "Ownership" is why Rick'n'Fokker is so aggressive in the first 3 letters of asserting; Gibson lost in court to asserting its dominance to the shape of the single-cutaway and PRS continues to make LP-like shaped guitars. Thank goodness Gibbleson lost or Gretsch and several other makers might have had problems with single-cuts.

Bayer didn't assert itself for "Aspirin" which can now be spelled in all lower-case "aspirin";
Kleenex still needs a capital "K" and if it's not a genuine Kleenex-tissue then it has to be a "facial-tissue" or just "tissue" but not "Kleenex".

Off the top of my head, there's at least 3 songs all called simply "Jump" and probably a lot more.



So...

... if a few of Jacques Pedals were to be traced, what would be the wholly Trinity uhm, TRIFECTA?

My understanding is that song and book titles are not able to be copyrighted

 

[benny_profane]

My understanding is that song and book titles are not able to be copyrighted

That’s correct.

 

[Feral Feline]

My point was simply there are multiple songs called "Jump", none of them alike other than name.

I see no reason why a Trinity Wah and a Trinity OD couldn't be on the same shelf at a music shop, especially given the very different aesthetics between Jacques and 903Effects.

 

[drgonzo1969]

I think Jacques and 903effects should have a cagematch WWF Hell in a Cell style. winner gets trinity

 

[DAJE]

My understanding is that song and book titles are not able to be copyrighted

That is correct, but depending on which words you're using, they might be trademarkable. As in, don't call your new movie "Star Wars" despite both those words being very common basic vocabulary words.

The reason why a lot of business names have intentional misspellings is that you can't trademark something that's part of standard language. Regular normal English words like "Jump" are free for everyone to use as they wish. The reason "Star Wars" isn't is that the company that owns the rights has a large and aggressive legal dept who defend that ownership, which is why they'll call in the lawyers on anyone. If you don't defend the trademark, you lose it.

If you want to trademark a product name, you not only have to pay, you have to prove that there's no one already using that name for a similar product. Big media companies can afford to do that. You and I and pretty much any pedal maker other than Boss et al don't have those resources.

What you or I could do is pay a lawyer to send a cease and desist letter. While that might seem scary to the recipient, actually suing someone for infringement of trademark is an expensive gamble, unless it's a real open and shut case. You lose, you pay and you lose the trademark. So as long as you're not being threatened by a company with the resources to definitely win, you can pretty much scoff at legal threats.

At the level of boutique / DIY pedals, people are respecting product names mostly out of politeness, not fear of legal action. Robert can say his PCB is comparable to the Boutiquist YATS pedal, and as long as he makes it clear it's definitely not an actual Boutiquist product, he's in zero danger of a lawsuit.

Trademark exists to protect business and product names, but it's designed to protect people's right to use words too. Including words that may once have been product names but are now generic terms.

 

[Feral Feline]

JUMP TRINITY!

 

[Aria51]

I just posted on the wishlist.
It's not like we don't already enough TS variants

 

[Feral Feline]

The way I've come to look at it:

It's like pasta or other dishes in different restaurants.

You may have tried dozens of restaurants' pasta dishes, and find some have an exquisitely flavourful basic spaghetti-bolognese — a simple dish, but the pasta is cooked to perfection, the seasoning is full of flavour without any one herb overpowering the overall taste...

Then there's the greasy-spoon down the street with a cheap blue-plate special, also a spaghetti-bolognese, but it's sitting in a pool of oil with rubberised ground-beef, chewy-starchy pasta that clumps together and a sauce comprised of straight-up tomato-paste and ketchup with wwwwaaayyyyy too much f$%^& fennel...


This is why there can never be too many YATS. Different chefs, eh, builders, from different restaurants companies with different ingredients, I mean assorted components, laid out differently ... makes for a very different dish uhm, tone.


Let's see what Chef Jacques has cooked up for us — he's French, so it must taste great!

"Would monsieur et madame care for some Chateau du 60-Cycle whine with your entrée?"

 

[Drayve85]

View attachment 50887

I’m a fan of 903effects already! And, I’ve never heard any of his pedals.