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Similar work experience, I was with a CBS-owned music company that had a CNC machine with some old Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster body templates. The hardw

Similar work experience, I was with a CBS-owned music company that had a CNC machine with some old Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster body templates. The hardware manager was cool and would let employees turn slabs of wood into Tele- and Strat-style bodies after hours. When the Fender/German court ruling came down, my first thought was: Fender has had roughly 70 years with the Stratocaster design, and the broader industry has been making S-style guitars for decades. Surely at some point a body shape becomes generic, right?

mc32 3mo ago
Things become generic if you stop defending them/enforcing your IP. I think the iPhone at one time defended the design of its “squircle” corners. Eventually settling out of court.
- anamexis 3mo ago
  I think you're thinking of trademark, but this isn't a trademark claim, it's a copyright infringement claim. The legal question is whether the guitar shape can be copyrighted.
  - dofm 3mo ago
    That is the legal question FMIC think they have settled with this legal win, yes. Two legal questions they will now be asked, by Thomann or LsL, are: - if such a copyright could exist, what shape precisely are Fender arguing it would cover? - if such a copyright could exist, would Fender (the company) have title to it? Answering these questions could get them into some difficulty, legally. Neither are obvious and the second one is really problematic.
    - matchagaucho 3mo ago
      It would be odd to try this as copyrightable in the U.S, where there’s a pretty clear distinction between art added to a guitar, like PRS bird inlays, and the core body shape.
      - dofm 3mo ago
        I think so. But also they lost even their case to make a trademark of it: https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/fender-loses-guitar-copyright-case-201886 https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/fender-loses-guitar-... https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91161403&pty=OPP&eno=246 https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91161403&pty=OPP&eno... You would think this would have been quite an easy win, because regardless of who makes guitars with S-type bodies, the outline of the Stratocaster or Telecaster is surely sufficiently identifiable with Fender as to be something they could at least claim should be their trademark in certain categories (on merchandise etc.) Fender failed to prove that if people saw a line art outline of the Stratocaster, they would associate it first with "Fender". And indeed an illustrated dictionary at the time used such an outline to just generically illustrate "Electric guitar", apparently. And in that finding: Finally, there is no evidence of record that from the first production of the guitars incorporating these shapes in the early 1950s until 2003, that applicant or its predecessors in interest ever treated the outlines of the body shapes as trademarks. In fact, we may infer from the evidence of record that applicant and its predecessors themselves did not view them as trademarks. They never policed the body shape, only the word marks and headstock profiles. In addition, they never claimed trademark rights in the body outlines publicly through, for example, the catalogues, until 2004. Rather, they only claimed the word marks and the headstock profiles. In the meantime, many other guitar manufacturers sold guitars with the identical body shapes for at least 30 years, either as complete guitars or in the form of kits. This was in 2009, when it was clear that Fender had never "policed" the body shape until that point. And this — from a deposition from Warmoth as far as I can determine (they made spare parts) which makes it clear that Fender never entered into an agreement with Warmouth about the body shape, only the neck (because of the headstock shape which they believed was trademarked): Q. And you have a licensing agreement to manufacture what from Fender? A. Replacement necks utilizing the Fender trademark head shape. Q. In those discussions utilizing that license, was there any conversation or written documentation with reference to body shapes? A. No. Q. Would your company be harmed if you’re no longer able to make body shapes depicted in [126, 928 and 127]? A. It would have a significant impact on our sales numbers and value [sic] of employees. Q. Why are you an opposer in this proceeding? A. I’ve been making these body shapes for 30 years, unopposed, untrademarked, and have built a business on making these parts. There’s a lot of demand for it. While I make other body shapes, the demand for them is pretty insignificant when compared to these three shapes. So this is Warmoth, in 2009, saying that Fender never asked them to license the body shape as far back as 1979 (which is also, if I remember reading correctly, when Schecter and G&L started making S-type guitars) So even if they do have ownership of some kind of copyright, they've never asserted it before and three decades of their own conduct kind of militates against them being able to enforce it. And they aren't the only ones, the finding goes on because Fender took action against multiple companies (this is around page 30–40 or so).
  - PaulHoule 3mo ago
    It seems like something you could get a design patent for but these are only good for 15 years.
queenkjuul 3mo ago
Leo himself did not copyright the design and himself sold "clones" after selling the Fender brand It's never belonged to Fender Corp
dkuntz2 3mo ago
Leo Fender patented the Strat design, the body became public domain when the patent expired in I think 1965. More recently a US court ruled that only the headstock design of a guitar remains intellectual property, because there's really only so many ways to design the body of a guitar

mc32 3mo ago

Things become generic if you stop defending them/enforcing your IP. I think the iPhone at one time defended the design of its “squircle” corners. Eventually settling out of court.

anamexis 3mo ago
I think you're thinking of trademark, but this isn't a trademark claim, it's a copyright infringement claim. The legal question is whether the guitar shape can be copyrighted.
- dofm 3mo ago
  That is the legal question FMIC think they have settled with this legal win, yes. Two legal questions they will now be asked, by Thomann or LsL, are: - if such a copyright could exist, what shape precisely are Fender arguing it would cover? - if such a copyright could exist, would Fender (the company) have title to it? Answering these questions could get them into some difficulty, legally. Neither are obvious and the second one is really problematic.
  - matchagaucho 3mo ago
    It would be odd to try this as copyrightable in the U.S, where there’s a pretty clear distinction between art added to a guitar, like PRS bird inlays, and the core body shape.
    - dofm 3mo ago
      I think so. But also they lost even their case to make a trademark of it: https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/fender-loses-guitar-copyright-case-201886 https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/fender-loses-guitar-... https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91161403&pty=OPP&eno=246 https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91161403&pty=OPP&eno... You would think this would have been quite an easy win, because regardless of who makes guitars with S-type bodies, the outline of the Stratocaster or Telecaster is surely sufficiently identifiable with Fender as to be something they could at least claim should be their trademark in certain categories (on merchandise etc.) Fender failed to prove that if people saw a line art outline of the Stratocaster, they would associate it first with "Fender". And indeed an illustrated dictionary at the time used such an outline to just generically illustrate "Electric guitar", apparently. And in that finding: Finally, there is no evidence of record that from the first production of the guitars incorporating these shapes in the early 1950s until 2003, that applicant or its predecessors in interest ever treated the outlines of the body shapes as trademarks. In fact, we may infer from the evidence of record that applicant and its predecessors themselves did not view them as trademarks. They never policed the body shape, only the word marks and headstock profiles. In addition, they never claimed trademark rights in the body outlines publicly through, for example, the catalogues, until 2004. Rather, they only claimed the word marks and the headstock profiles. In the meantime, many other guitar manufacturers sold guitars with the identical body shapes for at least 30 years, either as complete guitars or in the form of kits. This was in 2009, when it was clear that Fender had never "policed" the body shape until that point. And this — from a deposition from Warmoth as far as I can determine (they made spare parts) which makes it clear that Fender never entered into an agreement with Warmouth about the body shape, only the neck (because of the headstock shape which they believed was trademarked): Q. And you have a licensing agreement to manufacture what from Fender? A. Replacement necks utilizing the Fender trademark head shape. Q. In those discussions utilizing that license, was there any conversation or written documentation with reference to body shapes? A. No. Q. Would your company be harmed if you’re no longer able to make body shapes depicted in [126, 928 and 127]? A. It would have a significant impact on our sales numbers and value [sic] of employees. Q. Why are you an opposer in this proceeding? A. I’ve been making these body shapes for 30 years, unopposed, untrademarked, and have built a business on making these parts. There’s a lot of demand for it. While I make other body shapes, the demand for them is pretty insignificant when compared to these three shapes. So this is Warmoth, in 2009, saying that Fender never asked them to license the body shape as far back as 1979 (which is also, if I remember reading correctly, when Schecter and G&L started making S-type guitars) So even if they do have ownership of some kind of copyright, they've never asserted it before and three decades of their own conduct kind of militates against them being able to enforce it. And they aren't the only ones, the finding goes on because Fender took action against multiple companies (this is around page 30–40 or so).
- PaulHoule 3mo ago
  It seems like something you could get a design patent for but these are only good for 15 years.

queenkjuul 3mo ago

Leo himself did not copyright the design and himself sold "clones" after selling the Fender brand It's never belonged to Fender Corp

dkuntz2 3mo ago

Leo Fender patented the Strat design, the body became public domain when the patent expired in I think 1965. More recently a US court ruled that only the headstock design of a guitar remains intellectual property, because there's really only so many ways to design the body of a guitar