Gibson’s Guitar Shape Counterfeiting Win Undone By 5th Cir.

Gibson Inc. will have to retry its trademark claims against the makers of Dean Guitars because a court wrongly excluded pre-1992 evidence “critical” to the defense that the marks are generic, the Fifth Circuit ruled Monday.

Precedent required the district court to weigh the relevance of old third-party use like that offered by Armadillo Distribution Enterprises Inc., not categorically exclude it, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said. That error undercut Armadillo’s “primary defense"—that consumers had long perceived the V- and Z-shapes of guitars as generic and not indicative of who made them.

Circuit Judge Carl E. ...