Fender Just Made Gibson's Biggest Mistake and PRS Already Knows How To Win thumbnail

In early 2026, Fender quietly won a copyright case in a German court — against an AliExpress seller who never even showed up to defend themselves. Armed with that uncontested ruling, Fender's lawyers began sending cease and desist letters across Europe, targeting some of the most respected names in the guitar industry. One of those letters landed at PRS Guitars — the company behind John Mayer's Silver Sky, the best-selling guitar on Reverb two years running. But here's what Fender's legal team may have missed: PRS has been in this exact fight before. In 2000, Gibson sued PRS over the Singlecut shape, won an injunction in 2004 — and then lost everything on appeal in 2005, after Gibson's own lawyers argued in court that only an idiot would confuse the two guitars. This is the story of how one ruling against a counterfeit seller turned into an industry-wide legal campaign, why PRS has already written the playbook for fighting back, and what history says happens next.