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It is a trademark that ____________ intends to use in association with golf clubs, but I suspect it is really just another technology acronym rather than a new product name. After all, each new golf product must have at least three technologies, each with its own acronym. So what could APW be short for?

Remember the rap duo Kris Kross? Of course you do, those were good times. While I am not sure if Callaway is launching a product line to honor the rap duo, they did file a trademark application for….

Last week Callaway Golf filed a trademark application for an interesting mark, namely __________ associated with “golf clubs.” What could they have in store?

I was honored to be a guest on the nationally syndicated Small Business Advocate® radio show this morning. Jim Blasingame and I discussed some of the most common intellectual property issues faced by small businesses when outsourcing. Feel free to listen to the interview HERE….

OK, that title may be a bit of a stretch for some, but I find it interesting. I recently wrote an article titled The Ryder Cup®, Intellectual Property, and the IP Ryder Cup for the UK Patent Office newsletter. Feel free to check it out…..

Phil’s testimony was excluded from the first ProV1 trial, but Callaway is doing their best to get it admitted in the second trial. This week Callaway filed a motion titled “Callaway Golf’s Motion to Introduce Deposition Testimony from Phil Mickelson,” which explained their view of why his deposition testimony is important to the case. The motion explains….

Following up on last year’s post “The Best and Worst Golf Club Names Filed with the USPTO so far in 2008”, let’s look at some of the more interesting golf club trademark applications filed in 2009. Here are some of my favorite names that we may see on golf clubs in 2010…..

I was honored to be a guest on the nationally syndicated Small Business Advocate® radio show this morning. Jim Blasingame and I discussed competitive intelligence and steps that small business owners can take to monitor intellectual property issues in their industry. Feel free to listen to the interview HERE…..

I have authored many posts regarding celebrity athletes protecting their brands via the trademark system. Well, now it is time for these celebriletes (yes, I just made that word up) to take the next step to prevent others from snatching up a new Facebook vanity URL incorporating their trademarks.
Recently the social networking web site Facebook announced that it will begin providing access to vanity URLs at midnight tonight, June 12, 2009, on a first-come, first-served basis. As you may know, previously a user’s Facebook URL was comprised of randomly assigned numbers. Now, instead of random numbers, the URL would say facebook.com/username. For instance, Tiger’s Facebook URL could be facebook.com/TigerWoods, or that could end up as the Facebook URL of one lucky fan (who may end up with an interesting legal battle)…..

As you should know by now, the Callaway v. Titleist (Acushnet) golf ball battle has been pending for a couple of years, so a quick refresher is in order……. Now, for the update…. Yesterday, Acushnet’s attorneys filed a letter to the Court informing the Court that the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued rulings…..

An interesting golf trademark infringement lawsuit was filed this week. The Professional Golfers’ Association of America (The PGA of America) sued Scottish Golf Holidays for the unauthorized use of the RYDER CUP registered trademark. In fact, this is the second time The PGA of America has sued Scottish Golf Holidays in one year!
Click HERE to review the actual Complaint. I have reproduced majority of the sections below….. Wow, is that a Complaint or what! So, did you have any idea that The PGA of America has over 28,000 golf professionals? I would never have guessed that high! PS – Because the PGA did not use one particular Ohio IP attorney (known to love golf) as local counsel to file this Complaint right in his back yard…. I vow that once my game finally comes around, I will not join The PGA of America! Since I have been waiting 25 years for my game to come around, perhaps they should not be too concerned about the risk of losing this unlikely member!

This week it seems fitting to look at golf related patents issued to Masters champions. Don’t worry, it will be a quick look because there are only two!……

I was honored to be a guest on the nationally syndicated Small Business Advocate® radio show this morning. Jim Blasingame and I discussed piracy, counterfeiting, and employer-employee intellectual property issues. I have been a fan of Jim’s show for close to 10 years and highly recommend it.
I encourage you to listen to the interview here.

The close of another fiscal year at the USPTO brings forth some interesting statistics. For instance, the number of new patent applications filed in FY 2007 rose to 467,243; up over 4.8% from the 445,613 applications filed in FY 2006. (and those numbers don’t even include the 132,352 provisional applications filed in 2007!) Additionally, despite the USPTO again hiring over 1200 new patent examiners in the past year, the number of pending patent applications increased over 10% in the past year to 1,112,517. According to the statistics, an applicant, on average, will not receive a first office action until 25.3 months after their application is filed (up from 22.6 months in 2006). Furthermore, the average total pendency of an application in the USPTO has risen to over two and a half years! Did you know…

Click here to check out an interesting press release regarding a major golf club counterfeiting bust that occurred last week in North Carolina.

The fact that Callaway Golf has filed several patent applications directed to liquid filled golf balls makes me think that this may be a concept that we actually see on the course in the future. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason, but this concept intrigues me! (see my prior posts here, here, and here). The invention discussed in the prior posts was directed to internal structures in the ball that divert liquid as the ball spins to control the spin of the ball.
Last week another Callaway patent application published that is directed to liquid filled golf balls (US Pub. No. 20070270238), but with a new spin. The patent application describes the invention as:….

As if the agents and managers of celebrity athletes don’t have enough to do… an understanding of the trademark application and monitoring processes is essential (and not just in the US). So, what inspired this post? Recently a trademark application for the mark TIGER WOODS was filed in the US (serial number 79041026) directed to the following goods and services:….. Seems legitimate, right? Heck, the applicant is even listed as Tiger Woods Enterprises, SA. Well… the applicant is a Swiss company, not Tiger’s Florida company ETW Corporation; which is listed as the owner of all of Tiger’s other US trademarks. So, is the application legit or is someone trying to prey on Tiger’s good name? Perhaps, Tiger and his agent / manager are the only ones that know for sure, but a trusted source tells me that the Swiss law firm that filed the international application is very reputable, leading me to believe that the application is legitimate. Has Tiger been doing some sophisticated international tax planning? Legit or not… it is a good illustration of why celebrity agents and managers need to constantly monitor trademark filings.

Do you recall the Windage powder distribution system from the Fore Inventors Only show on The Golf Channel? You know… the environmentally friendly powder that you squirt in the air to get a read on the wind direction. This week the inventors received a design patent covering the ornamental design of the distribution container that resembles a golf ball. The patents is USPN D553996 titled “Promotional Product Resembling a Golf Ball.” Check out this figure from the patent.

I just happened upon this website created by the class action attorneys that are representing PGA Golf Professionals that were / are employed by Dick’s Sporting Goods and did not get paid for overtime hours. The website explains that the primary goal in this class action is to recover unpaid wages, overtime and other damages for employees who were not properly paid for the time they worked. The website contains some interesting information… check it out.

Readers of the Golf-Patents blog know that the posts regularly link to nice PDF copies of the patents and published applications that are discussed. Linking to nice clean PDF versions of patents saves the readers from the hassle of going to the USPTO website to view the patent(s) under discussion. The great free website www.Pat2PDF.org has provided this capability in the past. Lately the service has become a little touch and go (probably because the amount of website traffic). To ensure that the readers of the Golf-Patents blog have reliable links to clean PDF files of the patents and applications under discussion, I decided to create a similar free resource. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Gallagher and Dawsey has launched the PatentMarvel.com website. PatentMarvel is a free online patent tool for U.S. patent lawyers and inventors to create advertisement free clean PDF copies of U.S. patents and published applications… no strings attached. PatentMarvel will eventually include numerous tools developed by our patent lawyers to ease the lives of US patent attorneys, inventors, and intellectual property owners. Please give the PatentMarvel website a try…

A recent Golf-Patents.com post was picked up by a UK intellectual property blog, which got the attention of the hosts of the UK’s “Pods and Blogs” radio show. Isn’t the Internet amazing! The “Pods and Blogs” radio show is described as: The week’s news as seen by bloggers, podcasters and citizen journalists. Every Tuesday, as part of the Up All Night programme, BBC Radio 5 Live takes a look at world events from the perspective of the online community.
I would hardly consider the Golf-Patents blog as covering “world events,” but fortunately the hosts of “Pods and Blogs” are golfers! Thus, yesterday I was honored to be a guest on the “Pods and Blogs” radio show. Click here to listen.

Lee Trevino is famous for being a great charismatic golfer that gave us plenty of memorable one-liners. A few of my favorite are:”If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.”… “You can talk to a fade but a hook won’t listen.” … “I’m in the woods so much I can tell you which plants are edible.” Did you know that Lee is also an inventor? In fact, he is listed as an inventor …

It seems like the inventions are getting better. There were several inventions that I would purchase. Now for my review… (list)… So what was my favorite invention? Drum roll please… Another tie this week. I really like the … and the …

The Golf Channel premiers the “For Inventors Only” show tonight at 10:00 EST. The show features Vince Cellini as the host and a 3-member panel of judges (Bill Harmon, Stina Sternberg, and Fulton Allem). It should be interesting. I will post my thoughts on the inventions after each episode.

In the past your knowledge of iron club head design, putter design, and driver design has been tested. Now let’s revisit putter designs. How good are you at identifying a particular brand of putter when all the logos and trademarks are stripped off the club head? The figure below comes from a US putter design patent that issued this week to a major producer of clubs. Can you identify the brand of this putter? …

Everyone knows that a catchy domain name can be critical to the success of many businesses. Likewise, a poor domain can cause confusion, and even result in lost business. Additionally, a great domain name can be worth a lot of money. I recently found several funny articles about domain names and the potential of unintended meanings. As you may know, an anagram is a word or phrase made by rearranging the letters in another word or phrase. A particular class of anagrams doesn’t involve the rearranging of any letters but rather the rearranging of spaces. One classic example of this is the transformation of…

Misappropriation of trade secrets, negligent misrepresentation, breach of confidentiality, breach of implied contract, and deceptive trade practices… All things that Nike Golf, Impact Golf Technologies, and famed golf club designer Tom Stites were accused of by Triple Tee Golf. Sounds like a great made for TV movie (well at least made for the Golf Channel movie). First, a little background. In late 2000, Jack Gillig, founder of Triple Tee Golf (TTG), was searching for a company that would fabricate a prototype golf club that he had designed. That’s when Gillig contacted club designer Tom Stites and his company Impact …

In honor of Masters’ week, a look at the trademark portfolio of Augusta National is in order. Would you have guessed that AMEN CORNER is a registered trademark? How about the fact that Augusta National has registered the AUGUSTA trademark for use associated with golf stools and chairs? And the famous map with flagstick trademark is registered for use in association with restaurant services… and RAE’S CREEK…Interesting stuff. Check out this list of Augusta National’s trademarks… Frankly it is hard to grasp the magnitude of revenues associated with licensing the Augusta National trademark portfolio. After all, you don’t get to be a member of Augusta, let alone on the Board of Directors, unless you know how to make the green (money, that is).

Karsten Manufacturing (makers of the PING brand) had a good week at the US Patent and Trademark Office. They had two unique golf club head utility patents issue. First, USPN titled “Golf Club Head with a Variably Dampened Face” issued directed to a club head in which the striking face is coupled to the body of the head through a rheological fluid. The head can then be “tuned” by changing the viscosity of the rheological fluid. The second Karsten patent that issued this week …

Once obtained, trademark rights can last indefinitely. However, in order to protect and maintain these rights, a trademark owner must properly use their mark. It is important to remember that trademark rights are based on use. Thus, failure to use a mark properly or to prevent others from misusing or infringing a mark can result in an owner’s loss of trademark rights. The following guidelines for proper trademark use apply to advertising, correspondence, promotional material, press releases, displays, labels, packaging, signs, web sites, and any other media that uses, discusses, or describes the mark…

Golf equipment manufacturers have been seeking patent protection on virtually every product variation imaginable in the past decade. Therefore when I decided to do some research on golf bag patents (both utility and design) I expected to find hundreds of patents and published applications. Surprisingly, there are very few utility or design patents directed to golf bags. This is in stark contrast to clubs, balls, shoes, and even head covers! Sooner or later one of the bag manufacturers is going to take an aggressive patent strategy and dominate the market. I look forward to seeing who it is. …

The term “continuing application” is a common term in intellectual property, yet it is often misunderstood and incorrectly applied. This is primarily due to the number of changes in the rules governing continuation practice that have occurred in the past decade (and more changes pending). Most patent applications are filed as “original” applications. In other words, they establish their own filing date and do not have an effective filing date based upon another previously filed application. If an “original” application is then used to establish an effective filing date of a later filed application, it becomes …

‘Tis the season of New Year resolutions. As we all know, New Year resolutions are rarely successfully carried out past March or April. Therefore, successful companies have New Year goals, not resolutions. Such goals are infinitely more likely to be successfully implemented if they are written down in a specific quantifiable fashion. If you have specific quantifiable goals directed toward intellectual property (IP) then congratulations, you are in the minority. We have identified 10 New Year goals relating to intellectual property that each and every company should consider annually, regardless of size or industry. …

The published US patent application of the week (January 11, 2007) goes to Acushnet’s multi-material club face patent application (Pub. No. US2007/0010346). The application is directed to joining a striking surface to a club head, constructed of a different material, using solid state bonding (in this case explosion welding). There is no doubt that material joining technology will take club head design and construction to the next level. …