137 - I'm Telling Teacher...

A couple of years ago I reported on a playground spat between Titleist and Callaway surrounding alleged copyright infringement in the design of the Pro V1. I call it a playground spat because to me, it was a pointless exercise with the only winner being the lawyers.

As I wrote at the time, Titleist were appealing a ruling that prevented them from selling a ball that they no longer sold because of infringements on patents they claim they already own that have been bought up by another company that don’t actually use them!

After two years and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, a jury in the US District Court of Delaware has decided that Titleist didn’t have a case to answer as the patents in question are invalid.

Joe Nauman, executive vice president, Corporate and Legal, Acushnet Company said: “We are extremely pleased with the court’s decision, and we hope that this finally brings this long standing dispute to a close.

“We have explained throughout this process that Acushnet independently developed the technology in question.

"The Titleist Pro V1 family utilises 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 has repeatedly found.”



So there we have it, Titleist can once again boast about being the ‘number 1 ball in golf’ without any snide remarks from Callaway. Seriously though, did anyone really doubt Titleist?