Fender Targets Strat-Style Guitar Builders with Cease-and-Desist Letters

As Fender intensifies its legal efforts to protect the iconic Stratocaster body shape, a growing dispute is unfolding between the guitar manufacturer and the boutique builders who helped popularize the “S-style” guitar market for decades.

Fender, through international law firm Bird & Bird, has issued cease-and-desist letters to several U.S.-based guitar builders demanding they stop manufacturing and selling Strat-style instruments. The first company to publicly acknowledge receiving one of those letters is LsL Instruments, a small family-run builder known for its vintage-inspired S-style guitars. In response, the company launched a GoFundMe campaign that has already raised more than $45,000, claiming the cost of fighting Fender’s legal challenge could jeopardize the company’s future.

The dispute ties to a recent ruling in the Regional Court of Dusseldorf in Germany, where Fender won in a case against a Chinese manufacturer accused of producing Strat-style guitars for sale through AliExpress into the European market. According to Fender, the court determined the Stratocaster body shape qualifies as original artistic expression under European law.

The cease-and-desist letters demand that companies halt the production and marketing of guitars Fender believes infringe upon that protected design. In a public statement posted alongside LsL’s fundraiser, the company argued that Leo Fender himself never secured copyright protection over the Stratocaster body shape during his lifetime.

“We have been contacted by Fender Musical Instruments with demands to respond in a certain time,” the company wrote. “We were not prepared for this. We have to pay for legal representation immediately and we were simply not in a financial position to tackle this on our own.”

LsL added that defending itself would also require separate legal representation within the European Union, further escalating costs for the small builder.

“To do this we must raise immediate funds that we do not have available to us,” the statement continued. “We are a meager humble company that has never seen great success, but against all odds has remained a company for almost two decades.”

On May 28, Fender sent a cease-and-desist to Paul Reed Smith Guitars (PRS) over its PRS Silver Sky, artist John Mayer’s signature guitar. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The company said it disagrees with Fender’s assessment and declined to comment further.”

Like many electric guitars, the Silver Sky draws inspiration from the Stratocaster. Introduced in 2018, the Silver Sky has become one of PRS’s biggest commercial hits.

The situation has ignited wider conversations throughout the guitar market about ownership and the evolution of electric guitar design. Over time, the “S-style” guitar has effectively become its own category within the electric guitar market, with many players no longer associating the double-cutaway contour exclusively with Fender itself.

Fender’s general counsel and chief administrative officer, Aarash Darroodi, has issued the company’s first on-record statement on the campaign.

“This ruling is a meaningful affirmation of the Stratocaster as an original creative work and an important step in continuing to protect the integrity of Fender’s designs and intellectual property,” Darroodi said. “It reinforces our commitment to originality, supports fair competition, and helps ensure that when players encounter these iconic Fender guitar shapes, they can trust the craftsmanship, quality and heritage behind them.”

This is a developing story. MI