Brandon said,

September 24, 2006 @ 12:27 pm

“Lawsuit” generally refers to guitars made in Japan in the late 60’s/early 70’s that were exact copies of American guitars (generally Gibson and Fender). Mostly, the American companies were concerned over the use of the exact same headstock shape (the CF Martin-inspired Fender and the open-book style Gibson).

Interestingly, an Explorer Bass was never offered by Gibson until the 80’s, and never in the traditional ‘Korina’ finish. So this instrument is not really a true ‘lawsuit copy’, but it came from that era.