Behringer clones Novation Launchpad

[meatballfulton]

$70 from AMS in USA.

A real Launchpad S is $170 from the same dealer.

What's next to be ripped off?

[seamonkey]

Saw this on Wikipedia.
Legal cases[edit]

In June 1997, Mackie accused Behringer of trademark and trade dress infringement, and brought suit seeking $327M in damages[25][26] but such claims were later rejected by the court. In their suit, Mackie said that Behringer had a history of copying products by other manufacturers and selling them as their own.[27] The Mackie suit detailed an instance, in which Behringer was sued by Aphex Systems for copying the Aural Exciter Type F—in that case Aphex Systems won 690,000 Deutsche Mark.[27] The Mackie suit also mentioned similar cases filed by BBE, dbx and Drawmer.[27] On 30 November 1999, the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, dismissed Mackie claims that Behringer had infringed on Mackie copyrights with its MX 8000 mixer, noting that circuit schematics are not covered by copyright laws.[28][29][30]

In 2005, Roland Corporation sued to enforce Roland's trade dress, trademark, and other intellectual property rights with regard to Behringer's recently released guitar pedals.[31] The two companies came to a confidential settlement in 2006 after Behringer changed their designs.[32]

In 2009 Peavey Electronics Corp. filed two lawsuits against various companies under Behringer/Music Group umbrella for patent infringement, federal and common law trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trademark dilution and unfair competition.[33] In 2011 The Music Group filed a lawsuit against Peavey for "false advertising, false patent marking and unfair competition

[Alex E]

Ouch!! Not cool, Behringer.

[moremagic]

Ouch!! Not cool, Behringer.

come on now, everybody knows a behringer s h i t s in the woods

[vladimotor]

Annoying.

[Soul_Processor]

I don't know, I think they shouldn't have completely ripped off the design, but otherwise I see no problems. I always thought that the novation launchpads were a bit pricey for what they are...

[Ashe37]

I do see a problem with it, and i bet that the court i s going to tell them that making the round buttons oval instead of circular counts as *one* difference, not sixteen.

[pflosi]

And they also just bought up TC...

[tim gueguen]

Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens when they conclude the TC deal. Keep it running, or pull a Gibson and use the name on cheaper, less interesting gear?

Speaking of China it's surprising we haven't seen a Chinese company try to sell its own brand of electronic instruments over here yet. Joyo and Mooer have had some success with their lines of guitar pedals.

[Stab Frenzy]

Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens when they conclude the TC deal. Keep it running, or pull a Gibson and use the name on cheaper, less interesting gear?

Most probably they'll do what they did with Midas, ramp up production and drop the price to increase market share (like they did with the Venice, expect to see the M-One for 40% cheaper within a year), port over some of the IP to Be*ringer products first ("real TC reverbs in the X32!") and then bring out some cost-cutting "new TC products" that trash their name and legacy, like they did with the M32 which really doesn't deserve the Midas name on it.

[Stab Frenzy]

[Nistegmos]

Isn't this old news? I mean is this surprising at all?
I thought it was widely accepted that Behringer made knock-offs that were somehow legal.

[meatballfulton]

The Maschine clone is coming soon

[Stab Frenzy]

Isn't this old news? I mean is this surprising at all?
I thought it was widely accepted that Behringer made knock-offs that were somehow legal.

Not somehow legal, just very difficult and expensive to enforce. There have been a couple of cases like when they cloned the PCB of a Mackie 8 bus and in the end the court ruled that the PCB design was not able to be copyrighted for some reason. So now the only way to go after them is trade dress, like when they cloned all the Boss pedals and had to change the shape of them (the original ones shown at a trade show were dead ringers, except made of plastic not metal) so they weren't infringing Boss' trade dress. But you need the kind of resources Roland/Boss have to make it worthwhile going after them, otherwise you could bankrupt yourself with legal fees before it gets to court.

TLDR; Novation could attempt to stop them in the courts, but Behringer would just change things enough that they could sell the product, and Novation would end up very out of pocket from legal costs.

[pflosi]

Cannot repost that pic often enough:



That was what they presented at NAMM 2005.