The ESP Guitar Company

If it’s a lawsuit issue with Gibson, then why does ESP continue making guitars with the exact Flying V shape? That one is also a copyrighted Gibson shape AFAIK. Like this: https://bigboss.jp/store/products/detail/9626

And ESP’s subsidiary Navigator continues making Gibson shapes in Japan, including the Explorer. So why did ESP custom shop stop? 

My guess for the real reason is that they want to sell Snakebyte’s instead, lol. Which is understandable since that is the official Hetfield signature model.