guitars

I've heard it's not Trump himself selling them just one of his dickriders with his backing.

That's Trump's entire business model.

He didn't write the Trump Bible himself.

I don't think anything about a guitar besides maybe artwork printed on the face should be copyrightable.

Features of a guitar may be patentable. New and novel features might qualify for a utility patent, aka "Method and apparatus for pitch bending guitar strings via an articulated bridge." These would have to have functional ramifications to the guitar or represent a new way of making them. The spring-loaded bridge with tremolo handle would qualify for utility patent, I think Ovation's plastic round backs and maybe their clusters of small tone holes would also. Utility patents last for 20 years and all that I've mentioned would have expired by now.

There are also design patents, which is, for the most part, what I think the distinctive shape of a guitar body would fall under. Design patent covers the aesthetic shape of a functional object. The Stratocaster, the Les Paul, the Flying V, the distinctive body shapes of these guitars would qualify for design patent. Design patents last 15 years in the US so all of these designs would have long since expired into the public domain.

Then we get into trademark, which is different from copyrights and patents. Trademarks guarantee the source of goods, and are thus valid as long as you're in business. The names Les Paul, Stratocaster, Breadwinner, etc. Those names can be trademarked. In the guitar world, I would also allow trademarking the shape of headstocks, because while there are practical constraints head stock embellishments are largely non-functional and decorative. The headstock shape of a guitar is notionally similar to the hood ornament or radiator grille of a car. I give Fender right-of-way on their distinctive wedge with circle on the end shape and Ovation their Londo Mollari frill.

If we allow luthiers to trademark the overall shape of a guitar, we're stifling innovation. The entire reason patents expire is so that - after the inventor got his cut - anyone else can go "I can make it better and/or cheaper." Allowing the entire design to be trademarked in perpetuity is subverting the spirit of the law. It allows mostly businessmen who don't actually create anything to gather up and hoard intellectual property like a dragon hoards treasure, profiting from something they had no hand in creating like an intellectual tape worm. The inventions of 60 years ago must now be the heritage of all mankind else we risk allowing the rot of private equity to spread.