> Companies with deep pockets lock down the market by making it too expensive for competitors to operate and to offer lower-priced yet quality products. It is a legitimate tactic; even those who succumb to it don’t really begrudge the approach.
Who the hell wrote this article, the CEO of Acushnet?
"Don't get the wrong idea, small businesses love being sued over frivolous patents they never infringed upon!"
One reason to be so nonchalant would be that the guy did in fact copy someone's patents wholesale, and was just waiting for the day someone would notice. If you know the lawsuit is unwinnable and not frivolous, no point complaining about it.
> “We weren’t infringing. But we couldn’t afford to fight the case,” he says. Instead, his company settled the 2015 claims with Acushnet by agreeing to get out of the golf-ball business altogether; it received no payment from Acushnet, nor did it pay.
That small business' response here is hard to fathom. Either the reporting is bad, or they quietly settled for a nice sum off the record (to prevent other businesses from getting ideas).
> The sorry consolation is that the threats are a sure sign of success, he says: “We laughed when we got the lawsuit. We knew we made it.”
Yeah, really not understanding this thinking. The preceding sentence claims that they received no payment from Acushnet/Titleist, but I can't understand this attitude otherwise. Maybe they'd laugh if they were playing a round of golf, but this is a real life business, not a game.
The linked 2015 Golf Digest article [1] uses very different language and responses, calling the decision to shut down "painful" and "very tough". Further, they say:
> "Each company denies Acushnet's allegations and intends to vigorously defend itself in the case."
I'll grant that there is some time which elapsed between these articles and the incidents surrounding them, but I find it hard to imagine that their attitudes could have changed so drastically.
As someone working on a non-profit startup, I regularly half-joke that our long-term expectations are to make just enough impact that the vested interests who prefer the status quo will take notice enough and do whatever to make us disappear. If you start out with this awareness, you might not be okay being right about it, but maybe not totally outraged at the inevitable injustice…
It also seems plausible that they simply couldn't afford to pay the requisite legal fees and any associated penalties (e.g. not being able to sell, get new contracts, etc.) to fend off the law suit.
A plausible response in the software field, perhaps, but golf balls? Surely it's some effort to design a ball (or several), set up manufacturing, logistics, distribution, sales channels, marketing... I can't speak for the buy-side of driving ranges and miniature golf, but most regular golfers have at least some brand loyalty--a Slazenger, Maxfli, and Callaway are not perfect substitutes.
The source of commentary for this article is pretty suspect, I mean, how did Quartz find golf-patents.com? It seems like the sort of domain which would be set up by a golf patent troll to support a story about them holding patents.
The whois data for golf-patents.com lean toward this line of reasoning. The domain appears to be registered to an IP law firm. I'm not going to claim that they are a troll or a firm which enables trolls, but it is suspect in itself that they are referenced directly.
Acushnet Company does in fact manufacture, market, and sell golf balls, so it is reasonable that they could bring a patent suit as long as it does not turn out to be frivolous. It would be nice to have a system of laws which makes it fair for genuine victims of infringement to file and try suits without bankrupting competitors before the case is settled.
I was under the impression that filing baseless lawsuits was a tort. Furthermore attorneys are required to make a good-faith investigation of their client's case and refuse to take part in frivolous lawsuits. This may be a pretty low bar, but it sounds like Acushnet's attorneys may be failing to clear it.
From personal experience defending such suits, the bar is effectively so low to be imperceptibly higher than ground level. In the rare case it would be relevant, it's just as expensive or moreso to make that claim as defend the underlying case.
In this case, based on just reading the article alone, it would be a very hard claim to make against Acushnet. Even if the patents could be invalidated, until they are they have the presumption of enforceability.
This. The standards of vexatious litgtation are quite high, as they out to be. Otherwise every defendant would cry tort, and legitimately harmed parties would be dissuaded from using the legal system.
I think someone complained to Quartz that their articles were biased, so the writer here decided to represent both angles. ("they're just doing business" vs "they're bullying any competition") In my opinion, one of the most difficult lessons the internet age will have to learn is that the truth isn't always in the middle, and that both sides are not exactly the same.
Its not an internet age mistake. Greeks knew about it. It's called the "middle path fallacy." And most people subscribe to it because of the terrible liberal mindset in education and pop culture that screams and bleeds for equality of all ideas -- even lies and bullshit.
I suppose that "legitimate" here is used in the literal sense, as in "lawful" or "legal".
Unfortunately, these are the rules of the game. Small players may know this and plan accordingly. So when the inevitable happens, they may not like it but they don't need to hold a grudge to the company that did exactly as planned.
Which part are you commenting on? Is it the use of the word "legitimate"?
Because suing someone for patent infringement is a "legitimate" course of action, i.e. it's a lawful thing to do.
In fact (AFAIK IANAL etc etc) it's the only way to ascertain whether a patent is being infringed or not without working with the opposition directly and sharing trade secrets outside the context of a court room with proper protections, something I doubt anyone would be particularly happy about.
If it's the "don't really begrudge the approach" part. I don't know that any of us really have the knowledge from within the golfing industry to know what different companies think of the practice.
I think you missed the part where they implied these lawsuits are often completely without merit. It's abuse of the parent system to stifle competition, and we're supposed to believe business owners just shrug it off after they're bullied into bankruptcy?
> “We weren’t infringing. But we couldn’t afford to fight the case,” he says. Instead, his company settled the 2015 claims with Acushnet by agreeing to get out of the golf-ball business altogether
If the cases were settled out of court then we have no reliable way to determine whether they had merit. It's just speculation by the writer and interviewees.
I know, I was just replying to the parent's comment and highlighting that suing (AFAIK) is the only way to enforce patent rights. Apart from maybe threatening to sue, but same-difference there really.
Who the hell wrote this article, the CEO of Acushnet?
"Don't get the wrong idea, small businesses love being sued over frivolous patents they never infringed upon!"