US companies sometimes try to make "trade dress" or trademark claims, but that's much weaker than copyright.
Plus, FMIC may not even be able to prove that they legally own any rights that do exist! It's not at all clear they acquired the long-lived rights from Leo Fender when he sold to CBS; they only secured a ten year agreement not to compete, and the design patent they had on some aspects of the body shape would have expired in 1969 or 1970.
The body shape is in the public domain in the USA; it has been for 17 years.
Part of me thinks that they are insane and part of me thinks they want to be acquired because they have debts.
(Absolutely baller move for LSL to hire that guy)
The various curves and bevels on the Stratocaster aren't arbitrary aesthetic features, they're affordances to fit the human body. Change them too much and you get a guitar that won't balance on your knee or that pokes you in the ribs or that limits your access to the high frets.
Ola Strandberg set out to design the most ergonomic guitar possible. His design is both radical and basically derivative of the Strat, because Leo Fender happened to find something close to the perfect solution in 1954.
https://strandbergguitars.com/en-GB/product/boden-essential-...
> Ola Strandberg set out to design the most ergonomic guitar possible
It looks somewhat ... not how you expect the guitar to look.
I personally do not like the price though.
"The upper horn ensures perfect balance, the cutaways make it easier to play in the upper registers, and the contours of the body increase playing comfort. The shape of the Stratocaster was created to provide musicians with the most functional and ergonomic tool possible.
This is exactly why it has been taken up, developed further and reinterpreted by luthiers all over the world over decades."
A more serious review of the works of applied art problem comes from the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts.[2] That article ends with "Thus, the 'separability' line Congress has drawn, albeit often difficult to discern coherently, places most overall designs of useful articles in the public domain." Separability means being able to take the decorative design off the useful object. This covers logos on T-shirts, for example. A T-shirt with no logo still works as a T-shirt. But if you can't take the decorative part off the functional object, it's not separable. The common squiggle-shaped bicycle rack is an excellent example. That won design awards and is admired, but it's not copyrightable - you can't take the squiggle off the bike rack and still have the bike rack.[3]
The Fender Stratocaster hits that limit - take away the Strat form, and there's no guitar there.
[1] https://legal-resources.uslegalforms.com/a/applied-art-doctr...
[2] https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/lawandarts/a...
[3] Brandir Int’l, Inc. v. Cascade Pac.Lumber Co https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/834...
Edit: of course this case is in Germany, so US law doesn't apply and I claim not information on what their laws are.
