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I have been thinking about buying a mouthpiece lately. I am interested in a Laskey 30He. I am also interested in trying a stainless steel piece. Now it looks as if the best of both worlds will be available in Loud mouthpieces, but I have questions of ethics that will slow me down. Isn't copying a rim design like copying sheet music? Wouldn't a copy of the rim design be considered a copy of intellectual property?

Scooby Tuba wrote:...Scott Laskey developed the Schilke Helleberg II while he was an employee of Schilke. The intellectual property relating to the H II and the 30H would belong to Schilke, right?....]

I think there is a VERY fine line here. Yes, Schilke owns the rights to what an employee designs while in their employment. I think though that Laskey has the right to improve on his own design under his own name if the agreement when he left Schilke allows for it.

I'm sure the Loud rim will be an improvement.

An improvement would make people like me buy both to try them out and maybe return one. This would be competition and part of the free market system. A direct copy though....this feels kinda like the Chinese free market system.

It has to be patented first. I'm not a patent expert, but I think something has to be sufficiently original to be patented. I think that if the inventor has publicly sold the invention without first patenting it, then he/she cannot later patent it.

It isn't like copyright. Technically, all you have to do to copyright something is put it in "tangible form".

Again, I'm not a patent expert. But consider this: Does the "186" in Allora 186, and the "681" used by Cerveny refer to anything in particular?

There are three aspects of intellectual property:

Patents
Trademarks
Copyrights

They all function independently of each other. Even though something isn't patented you might still run afoul of either trademark or copyright law in copying it, depending on what the owner or person entitled to the rights did with the original and its design, lettering, etc.

For example, Rickenbacker's patent of an electric guitar ran out decades ago. But the shape of their guitars is still trademarked, and the logo is still trademarked and copyrighted. So don't go making an exact copy of a 4001 or 360-12 down to the headstock logo unless you want to be sued, as they are extremely vigilant in protecting themselves, even convincing eBay to pull well used and worn Ibanez copies off auction which haven't been made for over 20 years, and stopping Allparts from selling cosmetically perfect "toaster" pickups.