Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

> It is also interesting that MusicMan (Another Fender company!) has gone differently; still some of the most recognizable designs, but they have been selling officially licensed versions instead to capture the lower end. (SUB, OLP, Sterling etc), and don't have the copycats of the Fender models.

That's basically what Fender does with Squier. Arguably they invented that move back in the 80s.

I think it's more of a case of the whole market going stale. The biggest driver of guitar sales, rock music, is still relevant but not the primary driver of culture that it once was. You can only increase the playability of a guitar so much. In a lot of ways, it's a commodity now, and the owners of Fender - some investment firm - are trying to make good on their bet by either ignoring that fact or trying to make them not a commodity again.

> The shape of the guitar is very old (75+ years)

They are basing their claims on copyright[1], which is longer than 75+ years[2]. The first case they filed (in Germany, against a Chinese manufacturer) "validated" their copyright claims because the Chinese manufacturer did not turn up to court so the court ruled in Fender's favor in a default judgment. The small companies being sued could still fight Fender in court and overturn that default judgment, but court cases are expensive and Fender is massive. It's Fender abusing the courts to bully their competition.

[1] "The Dusseldorf court deemed that the Stratocaster design qualified as a copyrighted work of applied art under German and European law, thus prohibiting Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co. from manufacturing, offering or distributing guitars featuring the Stratocaster body shape in Germany and the EU." https://www.guitarworld.com/music-industry/fender-legal-ruli...

[2] "The chosen term for a work was 70 years from the death of the author." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_European_... Leo Fender passed in 1991, so any copyrights attributable to him expire in the year 2061 (ie another 35 years from now, more than 100 years after the first strats were sold). I'm not 100% sure this is the copyright situation Fender asserted, but it's probably something not very far off from this. If you think this copyright duration is absolutely ludicrous, you are correct.

It can be. But in this case they haven't defended such a case for decades, so it seems a court should throw that argument out.

Trademarks are a fundamentally different kind of IP.

With copyright and patent, the creator of the work is being protected. But with trademark law, it's not about protecting the content of the IP as such. It's about protecting the consumer from being misled into thinking they're getting the real thing.

And given the guitar market at large, with about ten thousand different guitars in the general shape of a Strat, it's pretty much universally known that the name on the headstock is what you have to look at to differentiate. So long as that name isn't misleading, I have a hard time imagining how they could make a case of it.

I mean, if the headstock says "Fernando Stratoblaster" or something, then MAYBE it's a little confusing. But my guitar, a Kramer Focus 6000 looked very nearly identical to a Strat (the edges are less beveled, the headstock is pointier, but at a quick glance...), but it quite clearly says that it's NOT a strat. Nobody's going to be fooled despite the striking similarity in shape.

I just finished restoring the Univox Coily that was sitting in my parents' basement for the past 25 years. Every time I step into the room and see it I do a double take because it looks so cool. (It sounds pretty great, too, especially through my Kay 703, aka the widowmaker.)