Titleist wins verdict over Callaway

[mvmac]

TITLEIST WINS DECISION IN PRO V1 PATENT DISPUTE WITH CALLAWAY

Fairhaven, MA (March 29, 2010)– Acushnet Company, the golf business of Fortune Brands, Inc. (NYSE: FO), and manufacturer of Titleist, the #1 ball in golf, announced that it won a jury verdict in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in its golf ball patent dispute with Callaway Golf Co.. Callaway asserted that previous generation Titleist Pro V1 golf balls had infringed on four patents originally owned by Spalding and subsequently purchased by Callaway Golf. The jury agreed with Acushnet’s position that the patents in question are invalid.

“We are extremely pleased with the court’s decision, and we hope that this finally brings this long standing dispute to a close,” said Joe Nauman, Executive Vice President, Corporate and Legal, Acushnet Company. “We have explained throughout this process that Acushnet independently developed the technology in question. The Titleist Pro V1 family utilizes technology from 74 Acushnet patents and was first introduced to our PGA TOUR players in October 2000, well before any of the Spalding patents were issued in 2001 and 2003. We appreciate the jury’s careful consideration of the facts and the time they devoted to these proceedings. This verdict affirms our view that all claims in these patents are invalid – just as the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) has repeatedly found.”

In January 2006, before Callaway filed this litigation, Acushnet petitioned the PTO to reexamine the four patents in the suit. Since then, the PTO has repeatedly found that all claims of all four patents are invalid. During this process, seven separate PTO examiners were involved in evaluating the validity of these patents and all seven concluded that they are invalid.

Acushnet Company has a comprehensive product and process Research and Development staff and the Pro V1 golf ball franchise represents the accumulation of technology developed by Acushnet over a 20-year period. As the worldwide golf ball performance and technology leader, Acushnet currently holds over 715 of the nearly 2,000 active patents related to golf balls – more than any other manufacturer.

[iacas]

Yeah, I still don't understand how Callaway can sue when the patents were ruled invalid, but patent law is nowhere near my area of expertise. My pal Dave Dawsey is surprised:
http://golf-patents.com/2010/03/29/u...itigation.aspx

[ApocG10]

  iacas said:

Yeah, I still don't understand how Callaway can sue when the patents were ruled invalid, but patent law is nowhere near my area of expertise. My pal Dave Dawsey is surprised:

My sisters husband is a lawer, and mostly deals with Patents. Now dont get me wrong, I dont know any more than you do about this stuff, but he says a lot of patents just have no legal grounds, and that he patenting system is very, very broken. It causes a mountain of frivalous litigation that ends up costing noone but the government.

Apparently very little research is done on the part of the patents office when it comes to patents. They allow almost anything to be patented, as long as an immediate keyword search doesnt bring up anything conflicting with the patent in question. Upon digging deeper, in the vast majority of cases, old patents cover things that make these new patents obsolete, because they were covered in subsections of old patents. Take that with a grain of salt, because as I said, im no lawer. But I know it keeps people like him in business and making big $$$.