Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

This Essay provides an overview of how patents played a core role in developing world-changing musical genres. This may be surprising, as normally copyright law is associated with incentivizing advances in the creative arts. But as this Conference’s theme and presentations emphasize, the whole range of intellectual property (“IP”), especially when viewed as a platform, supports innovation across the spectrum of human ingenuity and creativity.

This Essay is also intended to be read in conjunction with a viewing of the live-music demonstration of how pickups transformed popular music, delivered at the Conference and available at the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property’s YouTube channel. A link is provided in the PDF.

O'Connor, Sean M., Patented Electric Guitar Pickups and the Creation of Modern Music Genres (June 15, 2016). George Mason Law Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2016; University of Washington School of Law Research Paper No. 2016-20. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2823821

Patented Electric Guitar Pickups and the Creation of Modern Music Genres