Nearly all of my golfing pals at my home club, The Glamorganshire Golf Club in Penarth, in
Wales, prefer to play with the Titleist Pro V1 golf ball. Me, I can play the same rubbish with a cheap ball as I can with an expensive ball!
Now, the big news in the golfing world is that Pro V1's may be taken off sale, in the
US at least. Apparently the ball was infringing some copyright laws.
In December 2007, a jury ruled that Acushnet (manufacturers of Titleist, FootJoy and Cobra golf equipment) had infringed on multiple Callaway patents with the Pro V1 ball. After that decision, Callaway Golf (who had actually inherited the patents from Spalding) filed a motion seeking to bring a halt to the production and sale of the Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls.
Acushnet sought a new trial arguing that patents that they are supposed to be infringing are actually invalid and should have been rejected at submittal because they infringed on patents previously filed.
They also claim that the US Patent Office backs this claim and admits that the patent should not have been allowed to be registered. Nevertheless, in November 2008, a trial court denied Acushnet's motion and granted the injunction, effective January 1, 2009. Acushnet then requested a stay of the injunction, which was denied in a hearing late December.
However, Acushnet said in a statement that it will continue the appeals process in the patent dispute, and that this latest ruling will have no impact on consumers' ability to buy Pro V1s.
"This decision will not interfere with Titleist's ability to continue to manufacture, distribute and sell Pro V1 golf balls," said Joe Nauman, executive vice president for corporate and legal at Acushnet.
In the statement, Acushnet also noted, "In September, well in advance of the injunction, the production of existing Pro V1 model golf balls was converted to be outside the patents in question. As of January 1, 2009, there will be limited amounts of non-converted Pro V1 golf balls in retail inventory."
"Acushnet does not believe that the injunction order requires Acushnet to recall any Pro V1 golf balls from retailers, or that retailers are required to return any golf balls to Acushnet," continued Nauman. "However, Acushnet is prepared to accept returns of non-converted retail inventory if requested by retailers." (If anyone wants to make a quick buck, there are loads of the Pro V1 balls in the ditch which crosses the 6th and 8th holes at The Glamorganshire!).
My reading of this is that it seems that Titleist have converted one of their old balls to comply, and introduced a new one at the same time.
Is that all understood? No? Well, Aussie Geoff Ogilvie after winning the USPGA Tour season-opening Mercedes Championship in
Hawaii, made this wry comment which should make everything clear:
“There’s a new old one and there’s a new old one which is the new one, which is the model in front of the old one,“ Ogilvie explained. “The other one is a 2007 ball and this is a 2009 ball. There’s a version of the 2007 ball but it doesn’t breach the patent. So, I’m using the non-patent breaching version of the 2007 ball.”!
There should be no shortage in the
UK as, so far, the sales ban only applies to the
US.
My advice: be very careful not to lose too many balls whatever the make but, especially Titleist Pro V1’s!
Sandy Parr