Let's Try This Again: Callaway-Titleist ProV1 Suit Will Be Retried

by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 19, 2009 10:50 AM EDT Comment 6 comments

This story is day or so old, but I just could not get around to it with me becoming a Y.E.S. Man. Remember that lawsuit that Callaway filed and won about patents they bought from Top Flite pertaining to the ProV1 technology? And how the courts sided with Callaway and filed an injunction forcing Titleist parent Acushnet to take the old model ProV1 off the shelves?

With a magic writ, that decision has been rendered moot. From the Associated Press:

In a big victory for the parent company of Titleist, a federal appeals court last week ordered a new trial in its contentious golf ball patent dispute with Callaway. Acushnet Co. said the three-judge panel found inconsistencies in the jury's verdict, and that the trial court erred by not allowing a defense and the evidence to support it.

The decision also means Titleist can sell golf balls that were at issue in the lawsuit.

At hand, really, is the Acushnet claim that the Top Flite patents were actually filed after the ProV1 was introduced on Tour in 2000 at the Invensys Classic in Las Vegas - with patents in hand.

Funny how the calendar works.

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I know when I have been in court over one of my patents, two things were at issue: 1) prior art and 2) the dates on our notes and filings. Given that the case has been tried already, I would give Acushnet a big leg up in the re-trial.

by Old Man Par on Aug 19, 2009 10:58 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

you’d think that little “details” like the actual date of filing would have been brought up in the first trial…or even before when the suit was being brought before the court.

I smell a rat.

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Aug 19, 2009 11:06 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

True Court, and they should be.

But if this is a new trial, does that also mean an additional discovery phase?

I do remember how much I utterly loathed depositions. They may as well have put each of us under a bare bulb and denied us water…it was that close to torture. The other lawyers were trying to trick us into saying stuff we didn’t mean and ours we trying to keep us from saying anything at all. Me, I was trying to do the latter in order to avoid ticking off the higher-ups in my company.

by Old Man Par on Aug 19, 2009 1:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What ? No phone books to the side of the head ? :-)

I wonder if our country will survive our legal system

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Aug 19, 2009 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Were it not for the expenses...

…of the endless litigation, ProV1s would be $15/dozen. [/snark]

"Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose." - Winston Churchill

by turnover on Aug 19, 2009 12:24 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

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