I recently picked up this neat bit of history. Perhaps you're looking at the picture wondering what in the heck I'm talking about. Take a minute and keep reading to learn a little about why this full card of Gapen Beetles is noteworthy.
This all goes back to around 1976 when the Beetle was being made and sold by Gapen Tackle Co. The bait looks a lot like the Bass Buster Beetle - but the use of the term "Beetle" by Gapen crossed the line in the eyes of the Bass Buster folks. A patent infringement lawsuit was brought by Virgil Ward and Bass Buster against Dan Gapen and Gapen Tackle Co. that same year. In the lawsuit, Gapen claimed that “the name BEETLE is descriptive of the natural bait insect that the jig with a plastic body resembles; that no secondary meaning has attached to plaintiff’s use of the claimed mark; that the name BEETLE is “deceptively misdescriptive” when applied to plaintiff’s lure; that third party usage has destroyed the distinctiveness of the mark; and that trademark rights cannot be acquired in a name of a simulated natural bait for a fishing lure.”
Gapen got the mold for their bait from a North Carolina company, the mold being labeled as “beetle bodies.” They brought in experts to testify that the lure didn’t resemble a beetle, and even provided survey results showing that a large majority of people, when asked to name a critter the lure looked like, never came up with "a beetle." They also provided a list of 22 other companies that had lures using the name beetle in them.
For their part, Bass Buster gave a detailed history of the lure, which was created by Chuck Wood in 1963-1964. The name actually stemmed not from an insect, but as an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the English band, the Beetles, at the time. In the 10 years since it’s creation, Bass Buster sales had reached $2.8 million, of which the beetle lures accounted for 75% of that figure. While Bass Buster never registered the name “BEETLE,” it did register BEETLE SPIN and ORIGINAL BEETLE. They claimed to have also contacted 17 of the 22 companies listed by Gapen with cease and desist letters, and provided plenty of examples of the advertising they had done, notably the frequent use by Virgil on both radio as well as his television show.
In the end, Bass Buster won the case, and Gapen had to stop making the lure with the beetle name (note that the Ugly Bug had already been on the market since 1969). As such, a whole card of beetles is a nice example of the baits short existence on the market.