I can remember when Gibson tried to sue PRS over their Single Cut models, their own lawyers inadvertently helped the judge reach his decision. They had said "we are concerned people will go to a concert mistake the PRS for a Gibson, then go to a music store and buy a PRS instead. Only an idiot would not see the difference in a music store" The judge ruled by saying "You're right. Only an idiot would mistake these instruments up close, therefore I'm ruling in favor of the defendant". 😂😂😂 The same should happen here since a Dean clearly looks different enough by its headstock alone as well as other features that differ from Gibson. Add to that, Dean has been making their V and Explorer shaped guitars since the late 70's and early 80's and Gibson only recently came after them. There is a precedent where Fender tried to sue a company for making strat copies and lost because they had allowed so many companies to do it for so long that the courts ruled by negelcting to defend their trademarks and patents for as long as they had, the strat shape was now public domain. The same should be applied here.
I am sympathetic to Gibson here. The lawsuit is not about professional players. It’s about grandma taking Darryl to the local guitar store and she can’t buy a Gibson explorer, but she can afford an epiphone, a brand that Gibson owns and positions to scoop up that market… and Dean also competes in that market and can easily undercut epiphone pricing. It’s just a headstock, Darryl, and it’s just your first nice guitar…. Then Daryl starts a band with his brother and single handedly keeps that entire company employed even ten years after his death. Because he got a Dean instead of a Gibson company branded guitar… Yes the story didn’t happen that way but this is how the business works and pretending that Ibanez didn’t ride on Steve Vai for EVERYTHING they made for 35 years or ESP relying on Metallica since 87, Fender using SRV and Jimi… We have to appreciate that they have opportunities every birthday and Dean is cutting on that. Dean’s ML is equally iconic. The King V, the Warlock, the Ironbird, the Rhoads, there are a lot of shapes and I think we lose something when we aren’t forcing companies to innovate.
thats what they said in court when fernandez was being sued by gibson, that guitarists arent dumb and most of us have eyes.. well the majority of us have eyes but i would bet jeff healy would nave been able to tell a gibby appart from a lawsuite era ibanez just from touch and feel
Lol Dean is not marginally better … the issues that Dean have had up to recently , the main artist drops , and lost tasteless lawsuits against the Dimebag estates for some real shady shit.. No guitar company will ever have the history and value/notoriety that Gibson / Fender have built .
@FreeEngland1 yes guitars from all companies have lemons… I send those ones back and pass.. but some of the best guitars I have from other companies still don’t hold a candle to the Gibsons I’ve kept. Mojo is a real thing and not to mention Fender and Gibson will forever have the best resale value of all guitars . Put em up and they will sell.. other companies , hard to sell without basically giving em away.
It is not the matter of general shape. Many companies make variations of V and Explorer with modified proportions, some additional cutouts etc. Dean's shapes are almost (if not exactly) identical as Gibson. And they own the right to these shapes (they invented them, so they want to earn on the invested money). But they should have proteced it in 1970s, not now. If they did not care back then, why do they care now? Other companies would not invest in their projects based on these shapes, if they knew that Gibson will ban them from making the guitars. Now it is too late. This whole shape mistaking thing is just lawyers talk. Has nothing to do with reality in case of Dean. It make sense though in case of Chinese copies. I am not favouring one company over another. I own a Gibson Les Paul and a Dean Z. Both play and feel great.
It's a damn shame Dave Mustaine shifted his endorsement deal from Dean to Gibson. I have one of his Dean explorer models and it is infinitely better than a Gibson.
There are a few key differences between Deans and Gibsons that are blatantly obvious, namely Dean headstocks look nothing like Gibson headstocks, Deans cost less, and Deans stay in tune.
Gibson would have to know this would not go down well in the music world. On top of that there are all kinds of Asian makers that do an exact copy of Gibson. Add in flying v and explorer are a very very small part of the market. No one makes money on this, and it cost Gibson.
Yer right but……. Gibson did the Dean headstock back in the fifties 😮 I saw this “Dean” Flying V in the Gibson Garage in London. £20k can you believe it? What’s more can you believe they let some random dude (me) play it? They offered so what would you do? Long story short I liked the £5k Les Paul custom more 😂 than that. Here’s some detail about that Gibson Dean Flying V ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ifmui30POeM.html
