Okay, a couple of things need to be corrected or more fully explained. I go in historical order(Is that a real word?).
First, when the Japanese were first noticed in the early 60s, it was the Harley crowd that was doing the bad mouthing. They saw what the Japanese could(and would) do to the market. So they started referring to how disposable the Jap bikes were. This went on for 15 to 20 years. Some Japanese bike owners bought into this rhetoric, bringing in their relatively new Goldwings in for a rebuild, thinking they needed a cylinder bore. Being winter, the dealers would reluctantly do the job, breaking bits in the process.
Then, as stated before, Harley never patented the sound of a single crank pin engine. They did try and sue Honda when they came out with a single crank pin engine for the Shadow around 2000. I can somewhat understand the lawsuit, because Honda did taunt Harley(that scene from The Holy Grail pops into my mind, but I digress). The Shadow did have the "potato potato potato" sound that Harley is famous for. And Honda did have a 2 page ad showing the profile of the Shadow, with the only caption "Made You Look" underneath. Sure did piss off the Harley people. But 2 times, the court said that Harley can't patent the sound of a particular type of engine.
I know I said this before, but as smart at marketing as Harley is, you'd thing they would know that if they were to build something else, in addition to a V-twin, they might have a much larger share of the market. The Japanese have proven that they can built a better, cheaper cruiser. Instead of marketing their way into the market, why not innovate their way in?
