Official Luthiers Forum!

Bottom of page, 2012.
http://www.gitaarnet.nl/forum/showthread.php?153871-A-B-C-of-X-Y-Z-bracing

Translation read s "Finally found the time to work out what I mean.

It has something, as Superfly points out, of a V-shape (or reverse A)."

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Taylor's patent might also include the perimeter rout - but I haven't read Taylor's patent. Sometimes what is patent-able is the combination of old ideas used in a new way.
However,with this "prior art" it seems like you could get very close to what Taylor is doing without stepping on their (patent leather) toes.
Interesting side note:
With the advent of the Internet, a number of initiatives have been undertaken to create a forum where the public at large can participate in prior art searches. These forums have been related to both issued patents and pending patent applications.

I believe the perimeter rout is a separate patent.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Who knows, but I wouldn't worry about it. Really doubt they would cross the pond to sue you. You're not going to make dead copies anyway and you are just a "little guy". Literally, it's not worth their time...half of nothing is nothing. Save the posts and little drawing if you do though...
I worried about Gibson and their lawsuits in the '90's over the F5 mandolin, pickguard, "bell shaped T/R cover", flowerpot, even the F5 name.
Everyone and their brother was building F5's. Gilchrist was building nearly dead copies in Australia. What we finally determined was they were making big threats. That ended up going nowhere. All this is why I am glad to be out of the business. WAY too much hype and BS...
Ever hear of "The Loar" mandolins...

I cannot read Dutch but if that Dutch guitar bracing is not patented then no I don't think so. It's not about who discovers something first it's about who goes down to the Patent office with the high priced lawyer first.

Interesting question since the bracing diagram in the forum thread was posted in 2012, while Taylor did not submit their patent application until Oct. 20, 2015.

The claims in the patent fall into two general sets of claims. One set of claims for the bracing pattern on a guitar top and a second set of essentially the same claims for the bracing pattern with the braced top as part of a guitar. I was surprised that none of the granted claims address functionality of the bracing pattern since they are making such a big deal over how much better the guitars are supposed to be. The only thing I found addressing functionality at all was this sentence (which is not a granted claim):

"More particularly, the invention relates to a novel arrangement of structural support members, or braces that maximizes both the structural integrity and rigidity of the guitar and improves the ability of the instrument to amplify energy produced by the strings. "

With respect to the bracing diagram in the other thread, these claims in the Taylor patent are interesting:

2. The guitar top of claim 1 wherein each of the pair of longitudinal braces is a single integral segment.

4. The guitar top of claim 1 wherein the pair of longitudinal braces comprises a first longitudinal brace and a second longitudinal brace and wherein the first and second longitudinal braces intersect and terminate at a reference point of the guitar, wherein the reference point is near the heel end of the guitar top.

5. The guitar top of claim 4 wherein the reference point is at the heel end of the guitar top.

6. The guitar top of claim 1 wherein fan braces do not extend between the pair of longitudinal braces.

8. The guitar top of claim 1 wherein each of the one or more fan braces is positioned at an angle substantially perpendicular to one of the pair of longitudinal braces.

These claims do fit the diagram below pretty nicely. Nothing new under the sun. I doubt Taylor has anything to worry about though.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

For comparison, the figures from the Taylor patent:

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

"I cannot read Dutch but if that Dutch guitar bracing is not patented then no I don't think so. It's not about who discovers something first it's about who goes down to the Patent office with the high priced lawyer first."

Wouldn't the Dutchman's published design show "prior art" and make it a bit more difficult to defend the patent? Seeing that would probably give Andy Powers some gas. I'm sure that like Novak (fanned frets) he felt his design was completely original and without precedent.

Actually it is the exact opposite. It is not patentable if someone else did it before you regardless of whether they patented their idea or not (or ever marketed the innovation)

Patents do sometimes get granted when the examiner doesn’t catch prior art. The examiner probably never saw the prior are you are referring to (or didn’t understand it).

These guitar patents seem to be granted VERY liberally compared to fields I’ve been involved with. I don’t know if that is a deliberate calculation on the USPTO or not. A patent is just a fancy piece of paper until you try to use it to sue on. Perhaps the USPTO doesn’t put much resources in examining a guitar patent knowing that rarely are they ever used to prevent a competitor from copying a product or process. Most guitar patents I’ve seen are for innovations nobody but the patent holder ever wanted to market.

The Taylor patent seems of dubious value, and the prior art you found seems pretty definitive. But I seriously doubt Taylor has any intention of enforcing this patent. I looks like a patent for marketing purposes only. They probably hope people do try to copy it. That would give their bracing scheme validity in the market place.


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Same here. I worked in biotech and wrote a number of patents. In that field getting a patent granted for an idea was essentially impossible without first reducing it to practice to show that it actually worked and provided a solution to a problem in a way that was novel and non-obvious to those practiced in the art. The reduction to practice part meant collecting actual data to demonstrate that the idea actually worked as claimed. In the case of Taylor's bracing pattern, all they had to do was write a description, make three drawings of the idea, and call it a day.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Novak copyrighted "fanned fret". I wonder if Taylor copyrighted "V bracing" ? Getting a patent and defending it are two different things. If you can convince most of the people you have patented the idea that may be enough to scare them off. But I agree with Randolph - it is more of a marketing ploy. Look! our idea is so great we patented it! Did Kasha patent his idea?

Just some information from a patent professional:

Hesh, in the US patent system functionality does not add anything to patentability if the claimed device is structurally the same as the prior art. So, here, it's all about the structure.

Also, Novak trademarked FANNED-FRET and the trademark is still live.

The standard for patentability is the same regardless of art field. Because of the lack of published, publicly-searchable prior art references, it's harder for an examiner to find pertinent prior art in the instrument art field relative to, say for example, nucleotide sequences.

Patents are sometimes filed for marketing purposes and sometimes only for defensive purposes. In practice, patents are useful in more nuanced ways than just as a hammer. For example, if Taylor has a patent on a particular bracing system, it serves as prior art to anyone who later on tries to patent the same thing. In this way, Taylor has greater confidence that it can continue to use its patented bracing system without interruption.

Patent Office Examiners are allotted about 7 hours to read a patent application, perform a prior art search, read and understand the prior art and its applicability to the claimed invention, and write an opinion about the patentability of the claimed device (office action). It's not uncommon for examiners to miss art that would be on point. Which makes, in many cases, weak or flawed patents and causes much disruption (as evidenced in this thread) in the marketplace. That is just the reality. It's a headache for everyone, I know.

Finally, none of this is legal advice and nobody should operate as if any of the commentary in this thread is legal advice.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

BTW, claim 6 lacks proper antecedent basis.

It should be: The guitar top of claim 1 wherein the pair of longitudinal braces are separated by a space and wherein the space is free of fan braces.

Yes, I'm just showing off...

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Hi Steve,
Yes you are right - I should have said "trademarked". Copyrights are for literary works and other types of fiction (so maybe I'm only half wrong)

I have a new bracing pattern.



I give you, The Invert-X!

(Sideways) Picnic table bracing ?