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.
> “We laughed when we got the lawsuit. We knew we made it.”
So, what? They were just like "lol we're getting sued"? I have a hard time believing they were perfectly OK with the situation...
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.
[1]: http://www.golfdigest.com/story/five-golf-ball-companies-nam...