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.
