For the full background on the Fender shape dispute, including the dated timeline and the legal questions, see our reference article, Fender, Thomann, and the Stratocaster shape dispute.
One unresolved question has followed the Fender shape dispute from the beginning. Where, precisely, does the protected Stratocaster design begin and end? The cease and desist letters assert a protected design, and the dispute increasingly turns on how the boundaries of that design are to be identified. The most direct formal challenge on that question comes in a response letter from an attorney acting for multiple recipients of Fender’s letters, LsL Instruments among them, which demands that Fender’s counsel answer it specifically. What, precisely, is a Stratocaster?
Where the question comes from
The letter, dated 16 June 2026, is the latest publicly available response from Ronald Bienstock of Fox Rothschild, who represents a number of the brands that received Fender letters, including LsL Instruments, to Bird & Bird, the firm conducting Fender’s cease and desist campaign. Bienstock represented the consortium of companies in the successful 2009 opposition to Fender’s United States trademark applications for the Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Precision Bass body shapes, and his earlier response letter in this dispute, challenging the basis of the Düsseldorf default judgment and raising the variation problem, is already part of the public record through trade reporting. The newer letter was posted publicly on the Unleavened Shred blog on 17 July, and the excerpt below is transcribed word for word from that posting.
In separate remarks provided to Vintage & Rare, Johny Miller, LsL’s Director of Business Development, frames the moment plainly. “Many folks and fans are asking about what comes next with all of this. We get emails and calls daily about it from anxious guitar enthusiasts, other builders, dealers and artists. The answer is simple. Now we wait.” The waiting, he says, is for a definition. “Now that the PRS Silver Sky and Yamaha Pacifica are on this list, the question has gone far passed all of our original question of WHO would be involved, but now it’s a very big WHAT shapes would be involved. These two models are quite different in the eyes of the majority of the guitar buying community. It has us all scratching our heads now.”
The letter’s argument, in its own words
The excerpt argues that Fender’s own catalogue defeats any single definition of the shape the campaign asserts. It reads, in full:
“Moreover, recently Your Client has made a vast number of variations on guitars called a ‘Stratocaster.’ By way of example:
“the Acoustasonic ‘Stratocaster’ has a center sound hole, no pickguard, an entirely different pickup configuration, with minimal forearm bevel (at a different angle) and little back contour.
“The Aerodyne ‘Stratocaster’ has a flat, or slab, body with no contours whatsoever, back or front, and the body is bound, thereby making the radii of the top edge significantly sharper.
“Even more traditional style ‘Stratocasters,’ such as the Cory Wong and Mike McCready ‘Stratocaster’ have pronounced differences, the McCready having very little forearm bevel and a less significant belly carve, while the Cory Wong ‘Stratocaster’ has wholly different proportions with substantial variations in dimensional sizing.
“The Suona F-Hole Stratocaster has no arm bevel at all, with a bound sharp edge, with a notably wider body.
“The ‘Prestige’ Custom Shop line has had a multitude of differences with many models, notably, the Prestige Custom Thinline ‘Stratocaster’ has an entirely beveled body with a scoop in the treble-side cutaway. The electronics configuration is vastly different than other ‘Stratocasters,’ as well, having just two knobs and a toggle switch with the jack on the side of the guitar, and no pickguard.
“The Custom Shop ‘HST’ line of ‘Stratocasters’ have flat tops with no forearm bevel and no radius to the edges, and again, a side-mounted jack with only two control knobs.
“There is no shortage of other ‘Stratocaster’ models over FMIC’s history with different configurations, frequently having no contours on the front and back, such as the Squier Bullet, or flat tops, such as the Power Strat. In the 1990s FMIC sold ‘Stratocasters’ that imitated its competitors with an arched top (violin carve) with binding and a side-mounted jack. All of these guitars called a ‘Stratocaster’ do not match counsel’s fanciful description of the Strat body shape in its court filing. All of these references beg the question, what is a ‘Stratocaster?’ Counsel must delineate the exact reproduction of Your Client’s alleged protectable design elements and the corresponding features of Our Client’s instruments.
“The recent May 29, 2026 Wall Street Journal article referencing PRS Guitars, who we do not represent, regarding PRS Guitars’ receipt of your Warning Letter, makes it even more clear that Your Client does not have an established criterion for what constitutes an infringing Strat guitar. There are no specifics, no benchmark, no unqualifying measurements.”
What the argument does
Stripped to its mechanism, the letter turns Fender’s catalogue into the defence’s exhibit. Copyright protects the original expression embodied in an identifiable work, and infringement turns on whether protected creative elements of that work are reproduced in the accused product. The letter’s list, the Acoustasonic’s sound hole, the Aerodyne’s slab body, the signature models’ differing bevels and proportions, the flat-topped Custom Shop lines, the bound nineties arch-tops, argues that Fender itself applies the name Stratocaster across bodies that differ from one another in precisely the features any definition of the shape would have to rely on.
If Fender’s own use of the Stratocaster name encompasses variations in features that also matter to its assessment of third-party guitars, then, the letter argues, the boundary Fender seeks to enforce remains insufficiently defined. The demand that follows is specific and concrete, identify the exact protected elements and map them against the recipient’s instruments.
The letter’s citation of the Wall Street Journal’s PRS reporting extends the point from Fender’s catalogue to companies receiving Fender notices. Yamaha has confirmed receiving a notice but has not publicly identified the model concerned. If, as Miller characterises it, the Pacifica is within scope alongside the Silver Sky, the letter’s argument is that no clear public criterion can be inferred either from the notices or from the pattern of recipients.
What this is, and what it is not
These are arguments made in legal correspondence, not findings, and the distinction matters as much here as it has at every stage of this dispute. A response letter is one side’s advocacy, the model descriptions within it are counsel’s characterisations, and no court has ruled on whether the definitional challenge has force. Correspondence in this dispute has flowed both ways, Bird & Bird replied to Bienstock’s earlier letter, per trade reporting, and as of 11 August, Fender and Bird & Bird are not known to have replied publicly to the specific demand made in this one.
Fender’s public position throughout has been that the campaign targets close copies of the Stratocaster design, not double-cutaway guitars in general, with the company stressing dialogue and practical solutions. Fender’s stated legal position is that the Stratocaster body is an original creative work entitled to copyright protection and that the campaign is directed at products it considers close reproductions of that protected design. Whether German copyright doctrine requires the kind of delineation the letter demands, and what significance a court would give variation within Fender’s own catalogue, are questions that may be tested in the contested proceedings between Fender and Thomann, or in any proceeding arising from the cease and desist letters.
What the document changes is the shape of the public argument. The dispute has already raised questions about copyrightability, authorship, procedure, enforcement scope, and the significance of the Düsseldorf default judgment. The newer letter gives the definitional question its most specific form yet, using Fender’s own catalogue of Stratocaster variants to demand a delineation of the protected design elements and their alleged reproduction in the recipient’s instruments.
Where it goes next
Miller’s own summary of the position is simpler. “All we can do is wait for definition of what is being considered a ‘Stratocaster’ at this point.” The answer, if it comes, may arrive in correspondence, in a filing in the Fender and Thomann proceedings, or not at all. We will keep our reference article updated at each step.
Editor’s note: The letter excerpt is transcribed word for word from the letter’s public posting on the Unleavened Shred blog, and Johny Miller’s remarks are published verbatim. LsL Instruments is a publicly reported recipient of a Fender cease and desist letter, and readers should weigh its perspective with that context. The model descriptions quoted are counsel’s characterisations from legal correspondence, not Vintage & Rare’s findings. Vintage & Rare operates an online marketplace for vintage, boutique, and rare instruments, is not a party to the dispute, and has not been contacted in connection with this campaign. Our reference article on the case, kept deliberately neutral, is linked above.
Sources and further reading
Primary correspondence: Ronald Bienstock’s response letter of 16 June 2026 to Bird & Bird, posted publicly on the Unleavened Shred blog on 17 July 2026, from which the excerpt above is transcribed.
Statements: Johny Miller, Director of Business Development, LsL Instruments, in remarks provided to Vintage & Rare, August 2026.
News reporting: Guitar World’s report of 26 May 2026 on Bienstock’s earlier response letter; Guitar.com’s report of 29 May 2026 on the exchange of correspondence, including Bird & Bird’s reply; the Wall Street Journal’s report on PRS Guitars’ receipt of a Fender letter (published online 28 May 2026), as cited in the correspondence.
Vintage & Rare coverage:
Fender, Thomann, and the Stratocaster shape dispute: the full timeline and legal questions (our reference article, updated as the case develops)
Inside LsL Instruments’ hardest year: “Hurt is a lot different than hate” (our full interview with Johny Miller)
The generational bet: one builder’s theory of how Fender could outlast the backlash (analysis built on Johny Miller’s on-record theory)
Fender sues Thomann over Stratocaster body shape copyright
Fender’s body shape campaign reaches Yamaha, the largest recipient yet
When a shape becomes a battleground: Fender, the S-style, and what it means for the builders we love