Protect Win-D-Fender From Fender Corporation
Teacher and Small Business Owner Need Your Help!
It was a bad day when we opened a letter from Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (Fender). The legal team representing Fender, made requests that would severely damage our company.
We humbly ask for help funding a legal defense for our trademark, which is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The United States government protects our registered trademark; however, that doesn't prevent other companies with greater resources from engaging in expensive legal actions or filing lawsuits.
Win-D-Fender (pronounced "Wind Defender") started as a music teacher's lifelong dream to create high quality flute accessories for flutists, designed by flutists. The entire Win-D-Fender team dug into personal savings and retirement accounts to make this dream a reality. During the COVID pandemic, many customers, suppliers and dealers thanked us for keeping Americans employed and for supporting local communities.
According to CEO, Andy Mooney, Fender made record revenues of $700 million during the COVID pandemic. Fender is doing so well, they are expanding facilities in Mexico and increasing supplier capacity in Asia. Over the past few years, Fender also raised their marketing spending to roughly 10% of revenue; an estimated $70 million. (Woods, 2021)
Win-D-Fender makes a fraction of one percent of even Fender's marketing budget, let alone their total revenue. We do not have the funds to sustain a long legal defense against such a large company. Fender continues breaking sales records, including six years of consecutive double digit growth, during which Win-D-Fender registered its trademarked name. (Williams, 2020)
Not being able to afford a legal defense, and surrendering to Fender's demands would be financially devastating. Our tooling, inventory, marketing materials, websites, trade show materials and other items would have to be dispositioned, and we would have to repurchase all new items. Our dealers and distributors would be hurt, as they would have to disposition Win-D-Fender related items. Many of our authorized dealers are small businesses, as well.
Please help homegrown small businesses survive and continue providing high quality flute accessories to flutists. We would like to peacefully coexist with another company that sells guitars and related products.
If Fender agrees to drop all legal action, we will return all donations.
If you haven't already, would you mind signing our petition? We will be sending the petition to CEO of Fender. Let's make our voices heard!
Petition Link - https://www.change.org/win-d-fender
Thank you for your time!
References:
Woods, B. (2021, February 25). Fender hits the right notes. strategy + business. https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Fender-hits-the-right-notes
Williams, A. (2020, September 8). Guitars Are Back, Baby! Painted by some as a boomer relic just years ago, the guitar is seeing a revival that may just extend past the stress-purchase quarantine bounce. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/style/guitar-sales-fender-gibson.html
