There's an ongoing lawsuit with another guitar maker who essentially is claimng something like the fender guitar body is basically independently / evolutionarily the only good body style and that there's a convergence and so it's like trying to patent the shape of a saxophone or violin
It's interesting you used both saxophone and violin as your examples, as they are very different historically.
Violins are basically ancient and evolved gradually over huge time spans, yes.
But saxophones -- invented by a guy named Adolph Sax and patented in France in 1846! It really was a kind of new thing, combining aspects of brass and woodwind instruments in ways that hadn't been done before. I think it's fair to say he invented it as a new instrument. (What legal protection that should get how is another story, I don't know that I like patents honestly). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone
Sax was really mad about manufacturers reverse engineering and copying his saxophone without a license and tried suing them etc, for the period before his patent expired, but it was still being copied a lot -- it was a new thing people were excited about. Once the patent expired, it was definitely a free for all.
> Violins are basically ancient and evolved gradually over huge time spans,
Hey! I understand your point and you are completely right about violins and saxophones being completely different, but it is simply not right to use the word "ancient" with violins.
We know pretty much exactly how and when the violin evolved. If you found a viola or another instrument from the 1500s you would perhaps say that it's violin-like, but it's clearly not a violin. The Stradivarius is from the 1600s, the modern concert form is from the 1800s. Any which way it is far from being ancient.
A better example of ancient instruments is the flute and the drum. They are truly ancient, have existed in many cultures, and we do not know when they were first built.
thanks! I obv knew less about violins than saxophones!
Either way if it's functional then at most you get 20 years of protection. What's shared in both cases is that you can't trademark the shape.