Ahh, more golf industry patent infringement litigation; the stuff that makes attorneys smile. The PING Rapture is the latest target of patent infringement allegations.
Yesterday VyaTek Sports, Inc. sued Ping, Inc. and Karsten Manufacturing Corporations for allegedly infringing two of VyaTek’s patents. Click 7207354 and 7314067, both titled “Design and Manufacturing Method for Multi-Material Tube Structures.” The patents describe the invention as:
The present invention provides an improved tubular structure which uses the properties of different materials, such as stiffness, strength, and density are exploited in a manner which combines the most attractive characteristics of existing metal and composite tubes into a metal/composite tube which contains performance characteristics (stiffness, strength or weight) not possible with pure metal or composite materials. For example, an improved tube is suitably created with a conventional metallic tube structure (e.g., steel, aluminum, titanium or the like). The original tube is modified with a secondary operation such as machining, punching, laser cutting or the like to remove various portions of the original tube wall, resulting in a tube with some pattern of “holes” or “cutaway” sections, thus resulting in a lighter tube. The tube is then suitably “fused” with composite material. For example, in one embodiment of the present invention, the metal piece is placed in a mold assembly and composite materials are molded inside the metal tube resulting in a part metal and part composite tube that has beneficial characteristics of each material.
Reading that description, and looking at the figures below, you have think of the titanium golf club head as the “tubular structure.”
It seems that VyaTek is alleging that the PING Rapture’s carbon composite webbed titanium crown reads upon the claims of the patents-in-suit.
Interesting stuff!
David Dawsey – Keeping an Eye on Golf Club Patent Lawsuits
