[Tanoc]

As far as I know it's mostly rich hobbyists or people purchasing for decoration that buy Fenders just because of name recognition. Almost everyone else gets guitars from small custom shops because they're cheaper, better built, and you're not stuck with a single bridge style and two choices of pickups. That's if they don't just buy off the rack stuff from ESP or Ibanez, who have absolutely devoured Fender's market share in the under $2,000 category. Which incidentally is the largest consumer base. The only thing Fender sells consistently is the Telecaster and the Jaguar, both of which people prefer off the shelf versions of rather than getting from the custom shop because you can't really mess with the design of either without drastically altering the sound.

If you want an example of when this kind of lawsuit backfires and causes reputational loss like you say, look at Gibson. A few years ago they sued Music Man, First Act, Jackson, Dean, and a few others over the "flying V" design that came out in 1958 and had already been genericized by the early '80s. They won on trademark grounds against Dean and the resulting fear over the other open lawsuits caused a few Flying V and Explorer lookalikes to go out of production. Since then anyone who remembers the ordeal has warned people away from ever purchasing their guitars. Gibson were in terrible but improving condition in 2024 having just left bankruptcy in 2019 and the fallout from the lawsuit being revived last year has massively hurt their sales and left them right on the track to death again.