Interesting Putter UTILITY Patent Issues on a Putter that You May Recognize

May 22, 2008July 21, 2018 admin 1184 Views

On Tuesday an interesting utility patent issued on a pretty popular putter design. OK, “pretty popular” may be a stretch, but it is a pretty “unique”, or distinctive, putter that true putter aficionados will likely recognize. The patent is USPN 7374497 titled “Golf Putter Head With Visual Alignment System.” Do you recognize the putter brand?

Click here for what is probably the answer. I say “probably” because the patent is assigned to Sienna Sport Limited of Northern Ireland, not the company that owns the linked website. At first blush the product and the patent seem so similar that I suspect there is a licensing or distribution agreement between the two companies.

The patent describes the invention as:

A mallet-style golf ball putter with a hollow pipe component that has generally the same diameter as a golf ball, is positioned about the sweet spot in the vertical and lateral dimensions on the putter striking face, and extends longitudinally towards the rear of the putter to assist the golfer to align the striking face of the putter with the golf ball when in an address position and with the intended line of putt during takeback and follow-through. Peripheral weighting further enhances the moment of inertia of the golf putter head. The pipe component so designed permits a visual alignment of the striking face with the golf ball in the lateral and vertical dimensions and for a smooth perpendicular stroke along an axis of the pipe.

This patent is a good illustration of a putter utility patent (as most are putters are protected by design patents, see this post). This particular putter is also protected by a design patent, check out USPN D526373.

Congratulations!

David Dawsey – The Putter Patent Lawyer

PS – you can check out other golf putter patent posts here