I haven't been active on the forums because I am in law school, but I saw this topic on @TheGoalNet's Instagram and had to chime in.
While I'm only in my second semester of law school, litigation is tremendously expensive and probably not worth CCM's time. This is also a super-cool opportunity for me to apply my Intellectual property notes to hockey content. I am literally copying my notes from my classes, this is Canadian law. I am in no way giving legal advice, but rather just applying the legal steps regarding copyrights and trademarks (that are readily accessible to the public) to the current hypothetical problem.
For CCM to win in a litigation re: trademarks, they'd have to establish 2 criteria:
1) The mark has to be distinct
2) Mark has to be used
--> These two elements would be satisfied if CCM proves their distinct trademark on the shape the burden would be on CCM to prove "passing off" (when a company represents its businesses/services as someone else's benefit from using a similar mark) by satisfying three elements
1) A reputation acquired by the plaintiff (CCM) in their goods, name, mark, etc. (this would probably be satisfied in court because CCM's longstanding, non-changing look of the 590)
2) A misrepresentation by the defendant (Vaughn) leading to the confusion (or deception) (this is based on an objective standard, and the courts would ask "would a reasonable person notice the difference and would mistake the Vaughn glove for a CCM? - to the reasonable person, probably not. For gear nerds like us, sure - but we are not "reasonable persons" according to the law)
3) The misrepresentation causes damage to the plaintiff. (CCM would have to show that they actually lost money in sales and that instead of people buying their 590, they are moving to Vaughn's 590. The only way this is possible to prove is if you see a massive amount of pros switching and the ability for CCM to document this. Otherwise, no damage done.)
Unless CCM has a trademark on their 590 design, none of this matters. I thought the V7 XR was a great alternative to the shape of the traditional 590.
And if we shift the discussion to Copyright, Copyright protects expression only, and not ideas, schemes, systems, artistic style.
For CCM just to establish that their material is to be copyrighted, CCM would have to show two things:
1) The work is original (literary, dramatic, musical or artistic)
--> Originality does not mean unique; The work has to be a product of an author's exercise of skill and judgment.
2) The work has to be "fixed" in some type of tangible medium -- Copyright springs into existence at the particular moment it is written down, recorded, etc.
Infringement is a different story. CCM would have to show that:
1) There has been copying
2) If copying, did the infringer take a substantial part of the work? and
3) Has there been consent by the copyright owner to the reproduction?
Theoretically, CCM could prove these 3 steps fairly easily. However, similar to the trademark, unless CCM established a Copyright on the 590 shape, Vaughn is free to do whatever they wish.