[bostjan]

The patent was filed in 1989. The life of a US patent is 17 years from the filing date.

Plus, there were other guitar builders using multiscale fretboards before Novak.

It's $75 and yes, I've checked

[Haunted Cereal]

Originally Posted by Nick

i doubt there will ever be mainstream acceptance of the 8 string because meshuggah and other forms of metal which sound 'brutal' or heavy as fuck in general are never going to be mainstream.

i wonder how many people said the same thing before korn blew up

[dpm]

yes, the patent has expired. Novak owns the term 'fanned frets', so you have to pay to use that terminology, but you can call it whatever else you want with no problem. 'Multiscale' seems to be the most recognised other name.

There has been a lot of discussion of whether the patent should have been granted to start with because of prior art and claims of flawed method. It's all pretty irrelevant now IMO

[ElRay]

Originally Posted by nikt

Did You checked or just guessing??

I've got a strange feeling that You don't see difference between trade mark, patent and reserving rights to a project

I hope this doesn't come off harsh, but you're confused about patent vs. trademark, and the specifics about Novax.

In short, the patent has been expired for over a year; however, the trademark is still valid.

Novax never had a patent on multi-scaled, aka compound-scale, aka splayed frets, aka "Fanned Frets" (TM). He had a worthless patent on one method of laying out the frets that only worked with parallel (ala a Classical Guitar) strings. If his patented method was used with a typical tapering neck, the intonation would be off by up to a semi-tone. Pretty simple geometry proves the error.

Novax did have a trademark on the name "Fanned Frets", and an over zealous and woefully misinformed (at best) or intentionally fraudulent (at worst) business manager that basically extorted the licensing fee from luthiers making multi-scaled, aka compound-scale, aka splayed fret guitars. There are a number of luthiers (Dingwall among them) that just paid the fee to get Novax Guitars (the company) to leave them alone.

There were other luthiers that did pay the fee, and were "trained" by Novax Guitars (the company). A number have reported that they were merely taught the "lay out the two outside scales and connect the dots" method of fret layout. Novax Guitars didn't even use the (flawed) patented method.

That is all irrelevant now, unless a luthier thinks the "Fanned Fret(TM)" trademark, or "Novax-licensed" labels will get them a higher price tag.