But in the end did monster actually face any penalty at all? They threatened the guy, the guy said no, end of story. The bully moves on to threaten the next guy. The story insinuates lasting damage but it seems kind of subtle...
Most importantly, it was also popularly published. So the critical but tricky to measure metrics now are "how much sales do we loose because we are now firmly labeled as a bully in peoples minds" and "how much potential licensing revenue have we lost because people know they don't need to fold immediately"
It is hard do say, though, because the market for Monster cables is pretty clearly people who came in off the street, read nothing, and picked the fanciest looking cable. By their nature they are immune to bad press, right?
Lol it is not subtle at all - it basically says you will get pennies if you take us on and win, but if we win, you get screwed big time incl damages for anti-trust.
Guess BJC was content with letting them just go away...but once this was generally known, it does reduce the value of those threats.
Plus the threat to impose even bigger costs with anti trust violation claims!
Need to imagine the face of the in-house counsel reading it.