00:00The Fender Stratocaster is a shape so universal it's on your phone's emoji keyboard,
00:05which is exactly Fender's problem. For decades, Fender guarded the name, the logo, the headstock,
00:12and let the body go. That's how an entire industry grew up building strat-shaped guitars.
00:19The body carried no trademark. Fender tried to claim the shape in the U.S. and lost in 2009.
00:26The Trademark Board called it generic. Its lawyers found another path, not trademark,
00:33but copyright, the law that protects works of art, which the EU's highest court has been extending
00:39to everyday industrial objects. Last December, Fender won on that theory in Germany against
00:45a Chinese seller on AliExpress. The defendant never showed up. Starting in March, Fender's
00:52lawyers put 60 companies on notice. Yamaha, Paul Reed Smith, Toman, a giant retailer that
00:58sells its own strat-style guitars, and tiny shops like LSL, a husband and wife team that
01:05builds guitars in California and launched a GoFundMe for legal fees. Among Fender's demands,
01:12recall the guitars, destroy them, send proof. The backlash has been fierce, but Fender says
01:18the strategy is working. Eighteen companies have signed agreements to redesign their strat-style
01:24guitars or stop making them completely. It won't name those companies. I sat down with Fender's CEO,
01:31Edward Bud Cole, who assumed the top job in February. It's his first interview about the dispute.
01:37He says the campaign, quote, got ahead of us. He doesn't back off the claim, however. The Chinese case
01:44is over, but nobody has tested the claim itself. Toman is doing that now, and it will show up in
01:51court.
01:51So I asked Cole, just what makes a strat a strat? He calls it unique, recognizable, beautiful.
01:58What that means in legal terms, and whether the design is even Fender's to claim, is now up to a
02:04German court.
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