Legal Issues
In 2001, when PRS released their "Singlecut" guitar—which bore some resemblance to the venerable Les Paul. Gibson Guitar Corporation filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Paul Reed Smith. An injunction was ordered and PRS stopped manufacture of the Singlecut at the end of 2004. Federal District Court Judge William J. Haynes, in a 57-page decision ruled "that PRS was imitating the Les Paul" and gave the parties ninety days "to complete any discovery on damages or disgorgement of PRS's profits on the sales of its offending Singlecut guitar."
In 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the lower court decision and ordered the dismissal of Gibson's suit against PRS. The decision also immediately vacated the injunction prohibiting the sale and production of PRS’s Singlecut Guitar. PRS announced that it would immediately resume production of its Singlecut guitars.
Gibson tried and failed to have the case reheard by all sixteen active Sixth Circuit judges (denied in December 2005) and then by the United States Supreme Court (denied June 2006), which was their last chance to have their original injunction upheld.
While no changes to the design of the Singlecut occurred as a result of the lawsuit (given that Gibson lost), some Singlecut owners and sellers have adopted the term 'pre-lawsuit' to differentiate their Singlecut from others.
Read more about this topic: PRS Guitars
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