We humbly ask you to petition Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (Fender) to stop legal actions against Win-D-Fender (pronounced "Wind Defender"), and allow us to use our federally registered trademark.

Win-D-Fender is a registered trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  The United States government protects our registered trademark; however, that doesn't prevent other companies from engaging in expensive legal actions or filing lawsuits. 

Win-D-Fender 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)

Surrendering to Fender's requests 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 well, as they would have to disposition Win-D-Fender related items.  We have also spent countless hours developing and growing our brand name.

Please help a homegrown small business continue providing high quality flute accessories to flutists.  We would like to peacefully coexist with a company that sells unrelated products.

If you would like to support our legal defense financially, please donate to our GoFundMe page - https://gofund.me/776da614.  Donations made on this Change.org site go to the Change.org foundation, and not to us.  More information here:  https://help.change.org/s/article/Donations-FAQ?language=en_US

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