Williams Electric Trains

[rogruth]

I am most interested in the O scale 3 rail trains produced by Jerry Williams. I know that Bachmann owns the name now.
It is obvious, at least to me, than most Williams locos and much of the rolling stock are direct copies of Lionel products.
I never heard of Williams being sued by Lionel for this. Did they have an agreement of some type or were/are there just
enough small differences to avoid problems?

[jlong]

A good number of the engines Williams knocked off were real railroad prototypes and roadnames that Lionel modeled. Only the real world builders and operators were infringed upon and they didn't care. UP being an exception in recent years. The only time Williams got in trouble was back in 70's when they put the Lionel logo on prewar reproductions. It only occurred for a very short time and they were ordered to stop.

[ScaleCraft]

There was an issue with Madison heavyweights lordy, 35-40 years ago. The shells and paint were so exact, down to opening vestibule doors....I have 3 or 4 of them, had them painted in NP and lettered, the painter called and wanted to know why I was destroying such pristine Lionel Madison cars.
He was so upset I had to bring him the frames to prove "not Lionel".
Shortly thereafter, he ends were changed to solid, fixed doors as part of the vestibule ends, and speculation was Lionel leaned on them.
Still have the cars.

[Neil]

I think Lionel did not worry about cottage industry knockoffs that didn't use their trade dress. Always a mystery why they went after some small producers, and not MTH, when MTH was directly copying their iconic products. Guess they didn't like using lawyers as much as Mike Wolf did. He never saw a competitor he didn't want to sue. I think he now realizes he created enormous ill will in the hobby (particularly in HO) that it was truly crappy strategy for the long run.

[rogruth]

Thanks all.

[Roy]

The only time Williams got in trouble was back in 70's when they put the Lionel logo on prewar reproductions. It only occurred for a very short time and they were ordered to stop.

Williams put Magne-traction on some of their GG1s. I heard that Lionel sued them to stop, but their patent should have expired by then.

[chuck]

It may been the trademark on Magnetraction. That doesn't expire unless you allow it to. aka they can put magnets on the axles/frames as the patent had expired but they can't call it Magnetraction. Similar issues with the decoration/labelling of rolling stock. Since Williams was making Lionel knockoffs there was also the potential issue of counterfeiting, aka making new trains that look exactly like old ones and having people trying to sell them as new/mint. There is some write up on this in a couple of the toy train history books including portions of interviews with the principals, i.e. Richard Kughn and Jerry Williams (All Aboard, 2nd edition, and a couple of books by Jerry and Janet Souter).

[ScaleCraft]

Trade Dress covers part of that. LGB and Aristotrash springs to mind on exact copying of track.
You comments on exact and then folks trying to pawn off new as old, original... how many times have I seen "rare, vintage, never run, 1923 Lionel Standard gauge" on evilbait...with modern expanded foam liner packaging stuffed between parts for protection and CHROME instead of nickle plating......and some poor slob with pay the exorbitant prices for Mikey Knock Offs.

Heck, manufacturers do it to themselves with "limited production" stuff...and when it all sells out, suddenly your one of 500 is now 1 of 10,000 when the manufacturer starts the line again to meet demand.

[chuck]

Went back and took a look at the premier issue of CTT, Kughn did an interview. Excerpt of the pertinent section:

CTT: I've heard that you're taking a hard look at
reproductions of Lionel products. What's the background on this?

Kughn: We sent out a letter putting these people on notice that they have no right to reproduce parts or to use the name Lionel. We got a lot of responses saying that they'll acknowledge that and will cease, which is what we want them to do. However, there are some who want to continue; if it makes sense to us and we don't plan to produce that item ourselves, in all probability we'll let them do it. But they have to be licensed. It's like any other business. We have the right to know who's doing what and to make sure the quality of the Lionel line is maintained. We can't let every Tom, Dick, and Harry go out and peddle their homemade "Lionel" products.

Now we recognize that there is a consumer need out there for replacement parts, and we're not going to step in and create a problem. However, people doing mass production and volume production of rip-offs or take-offs on our product line can expect us to take a hard look at them. Very candidly, some of the things they are making are really part of the company I bought, and part of what we want to do is bring back these products under the Lionel name and satisfy the marketplace. But we're not going to want to do it all in one year like some of these outfits. That's no good either.

We're discussing this whole problem with our legal counsel and have already started to move in the area to remedy the problem.

[ScaleCraft]

"However, there are some who want to continue;" and you KNOW who he was talking about. I remember talking with a couple of Lionel folks back then, I think I was still a member of Trash Collectors of America, warned them that letting someone build exact knockoffs was going to come around and bite Lionel later.

I had a SG engine in here last year for repair, said Lionel everywhere, needed parts...called Lionel.
Oh, yeah, ummm...that isn't one of ours. Some transitional period where everything was exact....but not Lionel, even though it said Lionel everywhere.

If I recall, the kicker was metric fasteners, not SAE.

Ends up being one of the Boy Genius's early offerings.

Not Impressed.

[Roy]

Besides Williams by Bachmann, does anyone else make conventional 3-rail O gauge today? That is, straight track power, with no radio(command) control.

[chuck]

Nope. 3Rd Rail and Atlas only have ERR TMCC for 3 Rail, QSI for 2 rail. Maybe some importer from Europe?

[rthomps]

I think Lionel did not worry about cottage industry knockoffs that didn't use their trade dress. Always a mystery why they went after some small producers, and not MTH, when MTH was directly copying their iconic products. Guess they didn't like using lawyers as much as Mike Wolf did. He never saw a competitor he didn't want to sue. I think he now realizes he created enormous ill will in the hobby (particularly in HO) that it was truly crappy strategy for the long run.

Sad.

And, true.

[jlong]

Who remembers when the toogie woogies tried to convince us MTH would own Lionel? This was over 15 years ago and it ain't happened yet. LMAO!!!!

[rogruth]

Nope. 3Rd Rail and Atlas only have ERR TMCC for 3 Rail, QSI for 2 rail. Maybe some importer from Europe?

Chuck,
Lost me. To what is this referring?