14
votes
German retailer Thomann is suing Fender over recent cease and desists
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- Title
- Thomann takes legal action against Fender - Thomann Blog
- Published
- Jun 22 2026
- Word count
- 955 words
Interesting that Fender has somehow gotten a court to side with them about body shape (not just headstock shape) when they haven't been able to defend this for decades, with many clones having been around for quite some time now. On one hand, I kind of get it that you'd want to defend your company's iconic designs, but the ship sailed on the ability to defend a trademark on this body shape like 50 years ago. I doubt they'll be successful this time around, but I'm not a lawyer. Seems like a big waste of money all around.
The court gave them the ruling by default due to lack of paperwork from the defendant, not on the merits.
Exactly. Yet they've been using this to send cease and desist orders to a lot of small little luthiers, in order to pressure them to stop selling S-style guitars and even destroy their current inventory.
It's seems however, that they made the mistake of also targeting some of the big players. Thomann, who owns the brand Harley Benton, is by far the biggest retailer outside North America. And they are the 3rd largest distributor of Fender guitars in the world after Guitar Center and Sweetwater. They have deep pockets and can afford to fight this out in court. For reference, Fender has a revenue of about 700M USD whereas Thomann is about 1.5B USD.
Moreover, they are based in Germany where the default judgement was won. So they will be very familiar with the legal system there.
Overall, this whole debacle seems like a giant mistake on Fender's side. They've lost a great deal of reputation in order to bully some smaller companies, and now they're in a fight with one of their most important distributors.
Meanwhile, a company like Fender relies largely on brand reputation in order to make its sales. These days, others make similar and arguably better guitars (I'm looking at you, PRS Silver Sky). People buy Fender because of the name on the headstock. What for heaven's sake were they thinking?