Gene Simmons has trademarked Tablature ?!??!

So this is a very interesting read.

Original Site:
Gene Simmons Has Successfully Trademarked Tabs, Here's How It Affects UG


cut/paste:
"We are sad to announce that Ultimate Guitar will very soon undergo major structural changes.

This might seem like a sudden move, but we've actually been fighting a hard legal battle over trademark issues for around 10 months. On March 31, 2018, this battle was lost.

It all started on June 9, 2017. On this day, Gene Simmons of KISS filed a number of trademark applications, including the well-reported attempt to trademark the iconic devil horns gesture. On that same pile however, Gene also filed an application to trademark tabs.

Mr. Simmons alleged he came up with the tabbing system around the time KISS released their self-titled debut back in 1974. Bass players are simple-minded individuals, Gene said, and he is their king. And to help them play music, he took what he described as a "ridiculously complex" system of traditional notation and introduced tabs.

The USPTO committee said Simmons' story and the evidence he provided are solid, thus approving his application. We fought as hard as possible to repeal this decision, but ultimately couldn't do anything.

This left us thoroughly under Mr. Simmons' thumb. He proceeded to give Ultimate Guitar an ultimatum, saying:

"The site name is to be changed to Ultimate-Gene-Simmons.com. The News section is to publish an article about Gene Simmons five times a day. Each page is to display a pop-up ad linking to the sale page for the latest Gene Simmons box set. If there's anyone who knows how to make an intrusive ad it's Ultimate Guitar, hence the exact strategy of executing the said ads is to be determined by the site's marketing team. And what's up with tabs being free even though the site has to pay royalties for hosting those tabs? A $99 weekly subscription is obviously the only solution."
Ultimate Guitar CEO and founder Eugeny Naidenov issued the following response:

"I ain't sellin' no shaging boxes for that clown."
As expected, Eugeny was given until the end of working hours to pack up his stuff and leave. We are not yet fully certain to which extent Mr. Simmons will apply all the demands, but will certainly know soon, so stay tuned for updates.

You can find the original devil horns trademark application here. The tab application can be found here.

Uncle UG is dead, may Uncle Gene have mercy on your soul.


<<<I forgot what day it was when I first read this>>>