just gonna toss in a quick bit of input, I work with patents everyday, and there is a TON of misinformation in this thread.
like someone else said, almost everything produced has some sort of patent on it. there are 2 types, utility, which this patent is, which protects the fundamentals of how something works, and a design patent, which protects how something looks. id be willing to bet that every single ski on the market has a design patent on it, which protects the DIMENSIONS of the ski, or how it looks. In this case, there is a utility patent on how the curvature is designed in the tips, as well as the sidecut radi, and where they are blended together. It is legit. Also, despite the fact that they may have based the dimensions off a different ski, they were made by a small manufacturer who probably didnt have the funds to invest in patenting their design. that was stupid. they should have found an investor to cover the upfront costs involved. clearly the design is worth considerable money, and if they had have done that, they would be the ones offering a cease and desist. However, they did not, and Regardless of how things actually went down, Armada, being an actual business, filed for the patent, and got it. thats the bottom line there.
secondly, when you have a patent, you MUST enforce it, or it becomes null. this wasnt T hall or something making this call, it was Armadas Lawyers. will it hold up? probably not, as i think someone already mentioned, but regardless, they HAD to do this. Business is a completely different world than most of you kids are aware of. Learn t bite your tongue before you start spewing hate about something you know nothing about. it makes you sound dumb. and btw, this is a MUCH more legit case than the Scott ON3P case. that was just fucking retarded.