The Silver Sky also has a scalloped lower cutaway.

Fender will have a difficult time claiming much in the way of the design of the pickups or pickguard, or the tremelo bridge, because some of that was in the original design patent anyway, and that is long expired.

Plus, for example, the two-pivot trem bridge design they use now that has been copied is not the same as in the patent; they actually copied this innovation themselves. And they use different tuners I think.

Much of this stuff has been litigated already in 2009. And again, a really important point is that back in 2009 they could not prove they had chain of title to even make any claim of copyright, even if such a claim were possible.

FMIC could not or would not demonstrate that they had ownership (and there is really good, very obvious evidence in the market that CBS could not prove that in 1969 either)

So if the Thomann case goes to court in Europe they will have to prove they do, and if it gets into a discovery process the court might hear that Fender have been advised that they definitely do not, and that would be devastating, because that would cast the letters they have been sending in a very different light.

A lot of guitar quality signals will not show through easily in the sound. Like how easy or difficult it is to fret the strings, how well it stays in tune in a controlled environment over time, fit and finish work, etc. That kind of stuff makes the difference between a guitar that can be played, and a guitar which is fun to play.