I finally took some time to read through a little about this. It sounds like the group they were suing was because it was more "counterfeiting" vs "S-Type" guitar. I haven't seen a picture of that guitar, so it's hard for me to determine where I personally think it falls.
But this is a EU thing based on a summary judgment because the other side didn't appear in court. The ruling barres Strat and Tele copies to be sold/distributed in the EU. People can get mad all they want about that ruling, but it's Europe. They do a lot of crazy things that I think are wrong, not to say I think this is. It's just silly to get mad about what other countries do... they have different cultures, values, rights, laws, etc. Granted, I'm no attorney, so I don't know how rulings in other countries affect policies in the US.
In the US, there is no ruling on this. If Fender is sending all these cease and desist letters out to American companies doing business in the US, it's something to be litigated in the States, which hasn't happened, yet. Apparently, Fender tried to copyright the designs back in 2009, but the courts ruled these designs have been around for so long and used by so many, without any fight from Fender, that they are essentially in the public domain. This is why it is so important to defend copyrights, no matter the situation. If you don't, you can lose the ability to maintain your copyright.
This looks like a longshot for Fender to be able to force this ruling in the US. The idea of a "Partscaster" is so ingrained in Guitar culture, I don't see how it's enforceable. At the very least, I would be okay with Fender requiring everyone to change the headstock shape. I think it's kind of ****ty to make a T-style or S-style guitar so exactly the same as a Fender Strat/Tele that you even copy the exact headstock shape. Outside of that, I think anyone should be able to make an S-style or T-style guitar, as long as they are in no way correlating it to a real Fender.
Honestly, I've only watch 2 videos about this from guitartubers. The first I heard about it was Tim Pierce's video, and I saw pieces of another. So many of their issues were around concepts like "Fender is being mean" or "my friends are affected". I'm sorry, but that's not an argument I respond to. At the end of the day, we ALL know the Fender Stratocaster and we all know the Fender Telecaster. We literally refer to copies as being copies of those exact guitars. If I put myself in their shoes, I too would be pissy that other builders are copying our designs and competing in the market with our designs.
Anyways... I'm fairly non-committal about any of this. Let's see what happens when it's litigated in the US, which it most assuredly will be. I'm sure we'll see them all band together in a class-action.
