[arfar]

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.

[gthtjtkt]

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

[nradov]

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.

[timv]

The writer wants us to simultaneously believe that the cases were without merit, but were "a legitimate business tactic".

A writer can try to be an objective observer, or they can pick a side, but trying to pick both sides is just confusing.

[hackuser]

Those aren't the issues discussed in the article, other than in the broadest sense.

[arfar]

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.