[D_Malley]

ACUSHNET ACTS TO PROTECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Acushnet Asserts U.S. Patents Against Callaway’s Tour i and Tour ix Golf Balls Acushnet Defends Pro V1 Family Against Unfounded Assertions by Callaway


Fairhaven, MA (March 3, 2009) – Acushnet Company, manufacturer of Titleist, the #1 ball in golf, today announced a series of actions to protect the intellectual property related to its golf ball products. 

Protecting Acushnet Intellectual Property

Acushnet filed a patent infringement lawsuit today against Callaway Golf in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.  In its complaint, Acushnet asserts that Callaway’s Tour i and Tour ix golf balls infringe nine United States patents from Acushnet's extensive golf ball patent portfolio covering multi-piece, solid core technology.

“As the industry leader, we respect the valid intellectual property of others and expect others to respect ours,” said Joe Nauman, Executive Vice President, Corporate and Legal, Acushnet Company.  “We believe that disagreements like these are best dealt with between the companies involved and we have repeatedly attempted to resolve these disputes.  When these discussions failed, Callaway left us with no other course of action but to move forward with this lawsuit.  We are hopeful that these matters can be resolved, but we will continue to protect our intellectual property rights.”

Protecting Pro V1 Family from Unfounded Assertions

Acushnet also announced actions to vigorously defend against assertions by Callaway that the 2009 Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls infringe Callaway’s patent rights.  These claims are without merit, as Acushnet has designed its new Pro V1 models to be outside the claims of all Callaway patents.  Acushnet has today asked the court to rule that the patents asserted by Callaway are not infringed and are invalid.  Acushnet has today also filed for reexamination of these Callaway patents with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

“These actions do not impact our customers’ and golfers’ ability to purchase and play our new Pro V1 golf balls,” said Wally Uihlein, Chairman and CEO, Acushnet Company.  “We remain committed to providing golfers with the highest quality, best performing golf balls, and to insuring that the choice of what ball to play remains with the golfer.”

Acushnet Remains Confident in Ongoing Litigation

Acushnet also underscored that it remains confident in its ongoing appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit of the mixed verdict rendered more than a year ago in the long-running patent dispute with Callaway related to the validity of four patents that Callaway previously asserted.  Since the jury verdict, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has issued final actions determining that those patents are invalid, and these favorable Patent Office rulings will be considered in the appeals process. 

“It’s regrettable that one of our competitors would rather compete in the courtroom than in the pro shop,” Nauman concluded.  “However, we are committed to seeing these matters through to appropriate conclusions.  While all litigation is uncertain, we remain confident that we will prevail.”

Acushnet is the industry leader in developing golf ball technology and has over 650 active golf ball patents – more than any other manufacturer.  The Titleist Pro V1 has been the world’s best-selling golf ball for more than seven years and is the product of technology developed and accumulated by the Acushnet Company over the past 20 years.  Over 65 Acushnet Company patents are related to the Titleist Pro V1 family.

 

[Garland Bayley]

In danger of being accused of attacking the motives, I have to ask why this bunch of Titleist marketing material that is intended to fool people that don't know that status of this businees has been posted to this site?

[jeffwarne]

here's an idea.

let Titleist and callaway fight it out to determine who patented/invented the ProV1 (they already did once)

Then sue the winner for the cost of lengthening golf courses

[Dan Herrmann]

Give me a friggin' Blue Max.  What else do you need? 

[Damon Groves]

In danger of being accused of attacking the motives, I have to ask why this bunch of Titleist marketing material that is intended to fool people that don't know that status of this businees has been posted to this site?

I concur as to the real reason this was posted.

For what it is worth both a great balls and you simply play the one you prefer. For me it is Callaway iX.

[Mike Benham]

Are Titleist and TopFlite (Callaway) and other ball manufacturers like Donald Fehr, Bud Selig and the MLB Owners?

Their actions, or inactions, whether legal or not, have had an adverse, irreversible impact on their respect games ...

[Dave_Miller]

ACUSHNET ACTS TO PROTECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Acushnet Asserts U.S. Patents Against Callaway’s Tour i and Tour ix Golf Balls Acushnet Defends Pro V1 Family Against Unfounded Assertions by Callaway


Fairhaven, MA (March 3, 2009) – Acushnet Company, manufacturer of Titleist, the #1 ball in golf, today announced a series of actions to protect the intellectual property related to its golf ball products. 

Protecting Acushnet Intellectual Property

Acushnet filed a patent infringement lawsuit today against Callaway Golf in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.  In its complaint, Acushnet asserts that Callaway’s Tour i and Tour ix golf balls infringe nine United States patents from Acushnet's extensive golf ball patent portfolio covering multi-piece, solid core technology.

 Acushnet also announced actions to vigorously defend against assertions by Callaway that the 2009 Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls infringe Callaway’s patent rights.  These claims are without merit, as Acushnet has designed its new Pro V1 models to be outside the claims of all Callaway patents.  Acushnet has today asked the court to rule that the patents asserted by Callaway are not infringed and are invalid.  Acushnet has today also filed for reexamination of these Callaway patents with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

“These actions do not impact our customers’ and golfers’ ability to purchase and play our new Pro V1 golf balls,” said Wally Uihlein, Chairman and CEO, Acushnet Company.  “We remain committed to providing golfers with the highest quality, best performing golf balls, and to insuring that the choice of what ball to play remains with the golfer.”

Acushnet Remains Confident in Ongoing Litigation

 
“It’s regrettable that one of our competitors would rather compete in the courtroom than in the pro shop,” Nauman concluded.  “However, we are committed to seeing these matters through to appropriate conclusions.  While all litigation is uncertain, we remain confident that we will prevail.”
 

Only fools compete in the Courtroom and waste resources doing this.  Compete in the Marketplace and let the best man win there. Tileist and Calloway are fools.
Best
Dave

[Garland Bayley]

Only fools compete in the Courtroom and waste resources doing this.  Compete in the Marketplace and let thebest man win there. Tileist and Calloway are fools.
Best
Dave

Is it your argument then that patents are worthless, and should not be pursued by inventors in the first place?

[SL_Solow]

To add to Garland's post;
   The purpose of patent protection is to encourage innovation.  The cost of developing new products in many industries can be staggering.  For example, the R&D budgets relating to the creation of drugs are enormous.  Similarly, budgets relating to alternate energy development are huge.  If the inventor is not permitted to recoup his (its) investment in R&D by obtaining exclusive rights to the product for a limited time, the rate of return on the investment may become too low to warrant the risk inherent in the research investment.  Hence, a lack of innovation.

  Those traditionalists among us might say that would be great in the golf ball industry, lets stop now or roll back.  But that is up to those who "govern" the game of golf.  It says nothing about what rights should be granted to inventors and whether they should seek to enforce those rights.

[Craig Sweet]

 "Compete in the Marketplace and let the best man win there."

The market place....where he with the most money, and the loudest mouth usually wins...

[Garland Bayley]

"Compete in the Marketplace and let the best man win there."

The market place....where he with the most money, and the loudest mouth usually wins...

Craig,

What ball is it that you play? Oh, I remember, anything you can find.

[Craig Sweet]

Garland...

I filter out the junk...I have a bag of Pro V1's...all found. 

[Dave_Miller]

Only fools compete in the Courtroom and waste resources doing this.  Compete in the Marketplace and let thebest man win there. Tileist and Calloway are fools.
Best
Dave

Is it your argument then that patents are worthless, and should not be pursued by inventors in the first place?

Garland
That's not what I said and there are patents that are worth protecting.  However when you have a crowded field where the differences are probably miniscule then it is better to put the resources into the marketing and selling of the product.
Best
Dave

[Garland Bayley]

Only fools compete in the Courtroom and waste resources doing this.  Compete in the Marketplace and let thebest man win there. Tileist and Calloway are fools.
Best
Dave

Is it your argument then that patents are worthless, and should not be pursued by inventors in the first place?

Garland
That's not what I said and there are patents that are worth protecting.  However when you have a crowded field where the differences are probably miniscule then it is better to put the resources into the marketing and selling of the product.
Best
Dave

Or, perhaps Top-Flite should have gone after Acushnet with guns abalzing from the get go. It appears to me that clearly Acushnet stole Top-Flite's invention, and has no right to the share of market they have. IMHO, this was very much a patent worth protecting! As we have all seen it has been a game changer not just in the market place but on the golf course too. Acushnet was losing market big time until they stole the technology.  If this was not a technology worth protecting, I have no idea what your idea of a patent worth protecting is. You will find few that had a greater impact in their discipline.

[Doug Siebert]

To add to Garland's post;
   The purpose of patent protection is to encourage innovation.  The cost of developing new products in many industries can be staggering.  For example, the R&D budgets relating to the creation of drugs are enormous.  Similarly, budgets relating to alternate energy development are huge.  If the inventor is not permitted to recoup his (its) investment in R&D by obtaining exclusive rights to the product for a limited time, the rate of return on the investment may become too low to warrant the risk inherent in the research investment.  Hence, a lack of innovation.

  Those traditionalists among us might say that would be great in the golf ball industry, lets stop now or roll back.  But that is up to those who "govern" the game of golf.  It says nothing about what rights should be granted to inventors and whether they should seek to enforce those rights.

When there are real advances yes I think most would agree.  However, there are so many junk patents being granted today its ridiculous.  Business method patents that have no actual invention at all (a new way of marketing a product is not an "invention") patents covering mathematical algorithms in computer software, patenting something that's already in common use but essentially has "with a computer" added to its description, patenting gene expressions found pre-existing in nature, etc.

I don't know anything about the details of the patents they are fighting over, so if someone did a lot of engineering and found a better dimple pattern or core material that improves the ball they deserve protection (even though I think the USGA should have long ago put the kibosh on such stuff)  But if someone patented the cheater line, I'd have to scream "obvious to someone skilled in the art" due to all the people who put their own cheater lines on the ball before balls started coming with them.

And Shivas, if you are reading this, you are a lawyer so you should know how messed up the patent world is.  You should have foreseen the doom cheater lines would bring and patented them yourself, thereby guaranteeing that no one could legally sell a ball that comes with a cheater line for 20 years

[Garland Bayley]

I like to make two distinctions, innovation and invention. To me innovation is applying a known method to a new application, and invention is a completely new idea. The patent office will grant patents for both of these, and a whole lot more.

The reason I bring this up is that what Top-Flite did in inventing the Strata was as far as I know a completely new idea. They completely changed the spin characteristics of golf balls without such a method or technology pre-existing in another area that I know of. I will not buy a Titleist golf ball.

[Doug Siebert]

I don't know anything about whether Top Flight invented the idea, stole it from someone else, or if it was something that golf ball designers had been trying to do for years and it was Top Flight engineers who built upon the partial work of others that finally produced a workable product that embodied the idea.

I don't see how you can get down on Titleist for stealing their idea (if indeed they did so) if Top Flight didn't patent it and attempt to defend it in court (if indeed that's the case)  Its quite possible that Titleist and Top Flight had a patent cross licensing agreement pre-existing that allowed Titleist to copy the idea legally, or that there was a private dispute and out of court settlement paid in the past.  If Top Flight let Titleist steal their idea and never tried to stop them, its just as much their fault as Titleist's in my book.  Its like complaining that my house was robbed if I went away for a week's vacation leaving my front door wide open.

Saying you won't ever buy a Titleist ball for some imagined wrong without knowing for certain the details are what you believe them to be strikes me as a pretty silly attitude.

[Mark Pearce]

I don't know anything about whether Top Flight invented the idea, stole it from someone else, or if it was something that golf ball designers had been trying to do for years and it was Top Flight engineers who built upon the partial work of others that finally produced a workable product that embodied the idea.

I don't see how you can get down on Titleist for stealing their idea (if indeed they did so) if Top Flight didn't patent it and attempt to defend it in court (if indeed that's the case)  Its quite possible that Titleist and Top Flight had a patent cross licensing agreement pre-existing that allowed Titleist to copy the idea legally, or that there was a private dispute and out of court settlement paid in the past.  If Top Flight let Titleist steal their idea and never tried to stop them, its just as much their fault as Titleist's in my book.  Its like complaining that my house was robbed if I went away for a week's vacation leaving my front door wide open.

Saying you won't ever buy a Titleist ball for some imagined wrong without knowing for certain the details are what you believe them to be strikes me as a pretty silly attitude.

The use of the word stole is unhelpful in relation to patent litigation.  Many times patents are infringed without any deliberate wrong being committed.

Don't you think that if a cross licensing agreement was in place Acushnet would have pleaded that?  The pleadings are mostly publically available and those that I have read (and as a patent litigator I have read several of them for interest) don't mention any licence.  Guessing as to what the case was when it is in thepublic domain doesn't seem helpful.

[Garland Bayley]

I don't know anything about whether Top Flight invented the idea, stole it from someone else, or if it was something that golf ball designers had been trying to do for years and it was Top Flight engineers who built upon the partial work of others that finally produced a workable product that embodied the idea.

I don't see how you can get down on Titleist for stealing their idea (if indeed they did so) if Top Flight didn't patent it and attempt to defend it in court (if indeed that's the case)  Its quite possible that Titleist and Top Flight had a patent cross licensing agreement pre-existing that allowed Titleist to copy the idea legally, or that there was a private dispute and out of court settlement paid in the past.  If Top Flight let Titleist steal their idea and never tried to stop them, its just as much their fault as Titleist's in my book.  Its like complaining that my house was robbed if I went away for a week's vacation leaving my front door wide open.

Saying you won't ever buy a Titleist ball for some imagined wrong without knowing for certain the details are what you believe them to be strikes me as a pretty silly attitude.

Doug,

Acushnet has been sued and they have lost twice! They have been ordered to stop and desist from violating the patents, which is why they are saying they have an all new ball for 2009. Callaway, who purchased Top-Flite and thereby owns the patents, now claims the 2009 Titleist balls are still in violation of the the patents and are filing a new law suit over the new ball.

I take losing patent infringement law suits as pretty good evidence that the technology was taken under less than ideal circumstances, therefore I used the word stole.

[Doug Siebert]

I didn't know about the previous lawsuits, I follow a lot of that sort of stuff in the tech world but where it comes to golf I prefer to ignore all that stuff and just play

[Michael Powers]

To add to Garland's post;
   The purpose of patent protection is to encourage innovation.  The cost of developing new products in many industries can be staggering.  For example, the R&D budgets relating to the creation of drugs are enormous.  Similarly, budgets relating to alternate energy development are huge.  If the inventor is not permitted to recoup his (its) investment in R&D by obtaining exclusive rights to the product for a limited time, the rate of return on the investment may become too low to warrant the risk inherent in the research investment.  Hence, a lack of innovation.

  Those traditionalists among us might say that would be great in the golf ball industry, lets stop now or roll back.  But that is up to those who "govern" the game of golf.  It says nothing about what rights should be granted to inventors and whether they should seek to enforce those rights.

When there are real advances yes I think most would agree.  However, there are so many junk patents being granted today its ridiculous.  Business method patents that have no actual invention at all (a new way of marketing a product is not an "invention") patents covering mathematical algorithms in computer software, patenting something that's already in common use but essentially has "with a computer" added to its description, patenting gene expressions found pre-existing in nature, etc.

I don't know anything about the details of the patents they are fighting over, so if someone did a lot of engineering and found a better dimple pattern or core material that improves the ball they deserve protection (even though I think the USGA should have long ago put the kibosh on such stuff)  But if someone patented the cheater line, I'd have to scream "obvious to someone skilled in the art" due to all the people who put their own cheater lines on the ball before balls started coming with them.

And Shivas, if you are reading this, you are a lawyer so you should know how messed up the patent world is.  You should have foreseen the doom cheater lines would bring and patented them yourself, thereby guaranteeing that no one could legally sell a ball that comes with a cheater line for 20 years

A little solid core golf ball history
There were 2 companies in the early 90's who developed solid core balls that had high enough spin rates to be used by tour players, Spalding (Tour Edition), and Bridgestone (extra spin). 

From what I have been told, the top flite patents in question were Strata patents.

In 1999/2000 the golf ball world was changing with Bridgestone releasing the Tour Premium (probably the best ball on the market at the time) and Maxfli's solid core Revolution ball (also a great ball).  These were the first three piece, solid core, urethane covered golf balls on the market.  At the time Titleist still had their tour players using the wound Professional ball and compared to the Tour Premium and solid core Revolution, the Professional was an inferior product and Titleist stood to lose massive market share.

Maxfli was poised to take over the high-end ball market, then a fire in Japan crippled their ball manufacturing and it never happened.  Bridgestone just failed to do the requesite marketing to move a great product.

From what I have been told (and this is pure heresay) is that Titleist hired a R & D guy from Top Flite to work on the Pro V1 ball (this is back in the 1999-2000 time frame). 

There is no question that there was an enormous amount of pressure for Titleist to get a three piece, urethane covered ball to market as soon as possible.  It seems that (at least from the judgements handed down in court in Callaway's favor) that in Titleist's haste to get the PV1 to market, they violated certain Strata patents. 

For the lawyers,
Based on the judgements that have come down in Callaway's favor, will Callaway have a civil suit against Titleist for damages?  If so, how much will Titleist stand to lose in if this type of suit is filed?

[Steve Pozaric]

Doug,

Acushnet has been sued and they have lost twice! They have been ordered to stop and desist from violating the patents, which is why they are saying they have an all new ball for 2009. Callaway, who purchased Top-Flite and thereby owns the patents, now claims the 2009 Titleist balls are still in violation of the the patents and are filing a new law suit over the new ball.

I take losing patent infringement law suits as pretty good evidence that the technology was taken under less than ideal circumstances, therefore I used the word stole.

If you guys want to read the pleadings, and some summaries of the claims and litigation, you could go here:

http://golf-patents.com/categories/Balls.aspx

I am not an IP lawyer, but have read some of the pleadings.  I have also seen that the US PTO has invalidated some of the Callaway patents.  End of the day, I am not sure what the correct result is here.

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