Last week we brought you the opening salvo in a lawsuit Callaway Golf has filed against Acushnet, parent company of Titleist. Callaway alleges that the Titleist Pro V1 golf ball infringes upon four patents that Callaway acquired when it purchased Top-Flite Golf Company in 2003.
Acushnet has since released a statement clarifying its position on the disagreement. Read on to see what the Titleist take is, and where we might go from here.
As you’ll recall, at the heart of the Callaway suit are four patents obtained by Top-Flite in 2001 regarding solid-core golf balls. When Callaway purchased Top-Flite out of bankruptcy in 2003, the patents were part of a large package of intellectual property.
Given that Top-Flite (and the Ben Hogan brand that was also part of the deal) had been experiencing declining sales for years. many thought that the patent portfolio Callaway acquired was the most attractive part of the deal. Since Callaway had started from scratch in the ball business just three years earlier, the company’s patent portfolio was much thinner. Top-Flite, however, had decades of patents covering many different types of golf ball technology.
After all, coming up with a great idea for a new product is only part of the equation. You also have to do your due diligence and make sure that someone else hasn’t had the same idea, and/or patented it. There are inventors known as “patent squatters” who obtain patents on all sorts of ideas they never intend to use, only to sit back and wait for a company to infringe upon the patents – leading to a lawsuit, settlement or licensing agreement.
I don’t think any of the companies involved in this current litigation were acting as squatters. Top-Flite clearly came up with these patents with the idea of using them. The timing of the patents, however, is interesting. In a statement, Acushnet claims that the oldest of the Top-Flite/Callaway patents was filed on Dec. 12, 1999 – more than nine months after Acushnet received a patent covering similar technology. The other three patents in question were filed in 2001, after the Pro V1 ball was released on tour in October 2000.
According to the company’s statement, Acushnet has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to re-examine the four patents. Essentially, this is a way of asking to have Callaway’s claim to the patents thrown out, recognizing that Acushnet’s patents are more valid in this case.
As Acushnet’s statement reads, “We firmly believe in respecting the valid intellectual property of everyone competing in the golf industry. However, we have a very strong belief that these patents are invalid. … We have steadfastly maintained our view that these patents are invalid and have repeatedly shared that view with Top-Flite and Callaway.”
Let’s not forget that when Bridgestone sued Acushnet over possible Pro V1 patent infringement last year, Acushnet countersued. It’s hard to say what will come next, but things could get ugly if the Patent office doesn’t side with Acushnet. After all, Golf World quoted legal experts saying that Callaway could be entitled to as much as $150 million in lost profits, royalties and damages on the nearly $1 billion the Pro V1 has racked up in sales.
Acushnet maintains that the Callaway suit, like the Bridgestone suit, won’t affect production or sales of Pro V1 balls. The only thing I know for sure is that there are a lot of busy – and happy – lawyers on both coasts getting ready to go to battle.
It comes as no surprise to me that Calloway is sueing all and sundry. It is part of it’s company History,and has put many an honest person out of busines. they could not invent a ball, or a good putter so they bought busnesess that could provide those items. Neve mind that they had infringed the owner og the origional Ginty club with it’s first drivers,and when they tried to sue. They ended up sending money to the inventor of the ginty!! ’nuff said hence there will never be a calloway product in my bag.
I never sued anyone! I just liked to sing and dance. What’s this ginty club business?
Oh, you must be talking about Callaway, with an A. You’re a real golf expert, huh? I’ll be on the lookout for all those honest people Callaway put out of business (puh-leeze).
Hy-dee-hy-dee-hy-dee-ho!
Whether Callaway was acting as “squatter” or not is a rather naive and irrelevant question. Why would anyone acquire a brand like Top Flite that despite its phenomenal volume had been grossly unprofitable for years, if there weren’t an angle to it.
Why didn’t Top Flite use the alledged Patents to transform its business; did Callaway think it could do it? I don’t think so. The Callaway people know better than anybody that it takes a lot more than patents to build a successful product.
Afterall we are talking about the company that created the Big Bertha in the wake of the Baffler. Is the allusion to the 2o. World War a mere coincidence.
If we believe that than we can believe the acquisition of Top Flite’s patents was another such coincidence.
And this gets to the heart of another question that Callaway also understands well and therefore violates the principle that made Callaway a large company; I takes lot more than a good idea / patent to make a great product.
In many ways it will be a shame if the US legal system does not perceive that the PRO V1 is a lot more than the patents that contribute to its design.
If we rate the PRO V1 for what it is, what it represents to the millions of golfers that play the ball, what trully made it the most remarkable golf product of all times, it becomes obvious that the patents are such a small part of it.
We must never forget and so shouldn’t the Washington Distric Court and the USPTO that before being a Pro V1 it is a Titleist and that carries such a weight that not even the dummest attorney would dare to rule against Titleist.
Unfortunately, some of these guys are not golfers to know what we are talking about.
Life is much bigger and more complex than business. The pride and pleasure that golfers experience around the world everytime they open a new box of PRO V1 cannot be measured by the courts or USPTO.
The demise of many a golfers that switched from a Titleist to see their wins wither cannot either.
If all that is factored in and the courts are still dumm enought not to see it; the actual value of assessed profits in this lawsuit could only be proportional to the incremental profit the PRO V1 has generated. Afterall, the Professional, the Tour Prestige and the Tour Balata were just as great for the golf industry. Titleist is Titleist for over 50 years and this is no coincidence.
Ok, some more attorneys are getting rich. Who cares?
So, know I have to look at the ball I buy and know how many dimples are on it, how shallow the dimples are, what the core is etc etc etc so it can match my clubs. What kind of nonesense is this?
80% of the golfers out there could care less (they use balls they find), 15% will try and convince you (with BS) the brand they use is best for them and the other 5% know for a fact that the brand they use works for them.
IT IS ALL MARKETING! If the makers of golf balls didn’t have a “NEW” gimmick, who would buy them? Just like golf clubs, now there is the “HYBRIDS”. Comon folks, don’t let these companies fool you into buying their golf balls. On any given day I would wager that you can hit a found ball just as far as a brand new one out of the sleeve (all things being equal which they can’t)
There are a couple of things at issue in this whole mess. Forgetting for a second whether Acushnet or Callaway is in the right, the fact is we do have patent laws in this country and we do so for a very good reason. If a company was able to simply steal new technology and use it at their whim then virtually every product, drug, or other technical advancement would be produced offshore for less cost. All research development would cease in this country because there would be no valid busines reason for doing it!.
As to whether or not a ball makes a difference…
I pulled a Pinnacle ‘Ribbon’ out of my bag the other day and to be honest I hit it just as far as I hit any other ball. I loved the way it felt and the way it jumped off my club. But, around the greens it was very average at best, and that is what the Pro V1 is all about. There is a reason it is the most revolutionary ball in golf. If flys a mile because it doesn’t spin as much off the driver, but it is amazing around the greens because it does spin off a wedge.