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Thomann takes legal action against Fender over the Stratocaster body shape

Vintage & Rare news graphic reading “Thomann challenges Fender over the Stratocaster shape.”

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Thomann has taken legal action against Fender over the Stratocaster body shape, turning a one-sided run of cease and desist letters toward what could become the first contested test of Fender’s claim. In May we wrote about those letters, which Fender had begun sending to builders and retailers of S-style guitars, and about the one question they could not answer on their own: whether the German copyright ruling behind them would hold up once an established maker, retailer, or distributor actually contested the copyright claim. That question now has the beginnings of an answer.

This is a meaningful shift. Until now the dispute has moved in one direction, from Fender’s lawyers outward, in the form of demands. A contested case turns a one-sided demand into a two-sided argument, heard by a neutral court rather than asserted in a letter. For a marketplace built on the makers, dealers, and collectors who give the S-style its variety, that shift matters.

For the full background, timeline and legal questions, see our reference guide: Fender, Thomann, and the Stratocaster shape dispute.

What Thomann has done

Thomann has moved to challenge Fender’s cease and desist campaign aimed at S-style guitars. It says its own Harley Benton brand is among those affected, and that it is acting not just for itself but for the many smaller builders who could never afford a fight like this on their own. According to trade reporting, Thomann is not seeking damages, but a ruling on whether using an S-style body shape infringes Fender’s asserted copyright.

Hans Thomann has framed the move as a matter of responsibility to the wider trade, pointing out that many of the makers affected lack the financial and legal means to defend themselves. The company has presented the action as its own initiative while casting it as a step taken for the industry as a whole. The personal note is hard to miss. Thomann opened its doors in 1954, the same year the Stratocaster appeared, and has carried both Fender and a long line of S-style instruments from other makers ever since.

The test the first ruling never faced

The Düsseldorf default judgment is the ruling Fender has leaned on throughout this campaign, and it has a specific weakness: it was never contested. The judgment was entered by the Regional Court of Düsseldorf in December 2025 against a Chinese seller, Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments, that offered near-identical copies and never appeared to defend the case. A default judgment binds the party it names, and the court still had to treat the claim as admissible and well founded on Fender’s pleaded facts, which were deemed admitted under German default-judgment rules. But that is not the same as a claim tested against a developed defence. There was no adversarial examination of the evidence, and no opponent arguing that the shape should not be protected at all.

One figure that has travelled with this story is widely misread. The often-cited 250,000 euros is not a damages award, and not a fine on every S-style maker. It is the statutory ceiling for a coercive fine the court can impose on that one named defendant if it breaches the injunction.

That gap between an uncontested ruling and a tested one is the heart of the matter. A contested case would put the central question on a developed adversarial record, where a court weighs, against an opponent arguing the other way, whether the Stratocaster body really clears the threshold for a protected creative work. Thomann’s action is the route by which that question could finally be tested.

Form follows function

At the centre of Thomann’s case is an old principle, stated simply as form follows function. The argument is that the Stratocaster shape did not succeed because it was beautiful but because it worked. The double cutaways open up the upper frets, the contours sit the instrument comfortably against the body, and the upper horn helps the guitar balance. On this view, the features people recognise are solutions to practical problems, and European and German copyright law should not protect elements whose specific expression is dictated only by technical function.

It is a strong argument, but it is not a clean win, and we should be clear about why. The recent European case law the Düsseldorf court relied on allows a useful object to attract copyright even so, provided its particular form reflects real creative choices rather than pure engineering. On Fender’s uncontested case, the Düsseldorf court took that route, treating the body’s particular curves and asymmetry as the signature of its designer rather than the inevitable result of function. A contested case would test whether that reasoning holds with a defendant in the room to challenge it.

The outcome is far from settled, and shape claims do not always survive that kind of scrutiny. In the United States, under trademark rather than copyright law, a jury found Gibson’s ES body shape generic, and in February 2026 a federal court declined to overturn that finding. The frameworks are different and the comparison is not exact, but the lesson travels. A claim asserted against silence is not the same as a claim defended against argument.

The defence is not short of precedent or expertise either. LsL Instruments, the first builder to confirm a letter, has said its response is being led by Ron Bienstock, the attorney who led the successful opposition to Fender’s attempt to register the Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Precision Bass body outlines in the 2000s. Thomann is reported to be advancing a similar argument, that the shape is functional rather than purely artistic. That does not make the cases a single coordinated front, but it shows that part of the defence is already drawing on that earlier record.

Fender’s side

Fender’s position deserves to be stated plainly, because it is not unreasonable. The company has a real and serious problem with mass-produced copies and outright counterfeits, and it is entitled to protect its intellectual property where the law recognises it. Speaking in June, before Thomann announced its action, Fender’s new chief executive, Edward “Bud” Cole, told a dealer event that the company was not suing anyone, but reaching out to a small number of makers whose guitars come very close to the Stratocaster. He went further than the original letters had. His stated preference was for practical solutions: design changes where needed, generous transition periods to sell through existing stock, and no inventory destruction or immediate financial demands. He also argued that even the shorthand S-style understates what Leo Fender’s design contributed.

The tension is between that framing and the letters themselves, which according to trade reporting asked recipients to halt sales, recall instruments already sold, and provide customer and sales data, with the threat of litigation if they did not comply. The reach extends to US builders too. LsL and PRS have received letters, which Fender describes as concerning products made, marketed, or sold in the European Union rather than US sales. PRS has confirmed its letter, over the Stratocaster-inspired Silver Sky it sells under its own name, and has said it disagrees with Fender’s assessment. When a campaign reaches instruments like those, the line between a counterfeit and a legitimate interpretation becomes the whole question, and it is a line a court is far better placed to draw than a law firm acting for one side.

What it means for collectors

For collectors and dealers, the lesson of this escalation is simple: documentation matters more now, not less. A contested case does not resolve quickly, so the uncertainty around S-style instruments will sit with the trade for a while yet. If the legitimacy of a design can be questioned, then being able to show who built an instrument, when, where, and under what understanding of the rules becomes part of what the instrument is worth, and part of what protects the dealer who stands behind it.

The boundary here is clear. The resale of genuine vintage Fender instruments is not the target. The dispute is about new-build S-style guitars, and about where close copying ends and legitimate design language begins. What the moment rewards most, especially for boutique and modern S-style instruments, is a credible record of provenance, which is the work we already care about and will keep investing in.

What is settled, and what is not

Because this is a fast-moving legal story, it helps to separate what is settled from what is not. The settled facts are the Düsseldorf default judgment and its terms, the cease and desist campaign, the brands so far publicly confirmed as affected (Harley Benton, LsL, and PRS), Cole’s June remarks, and Thomann’s decision to act. What is not yet public is the exact court and filing, the precise relief Thomann is seeking, and whether the action is formally framed as a claim for a declaration of non-infringement. We will update this piece as the court record becomes available.

Where we stand

Vintage & Rare is not a party to this case, and we are not going to pretend to predict how a court will rule. What we will say is that moving the question into a contested forum is welcome. A question this large, about a shape that seventy years of makers and players have all had a hand in shaping, is better argued in the open and on evidence, by both sides, than effectively settled through private enforcement letters and a mismatch of resources between the parties on each side of them.

A cease and desist letter is one side asserting a claim. A contested case is that claim being tested, and Thomann’s move may bring that test closer. We will keep following it as it develops.

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