How would you like to be on the receiving end of a Complaint in which golf giant Callaway accuses you of (i) infringing one UTILITY patent, (ii) infringing three DESIGN patents, (3) infringing two trademarks, (4) trademark dilution, (5) breach of contract, (6) common law unfair competition, and (7) false advertising? This is exactly the position that King Sports, AT Golf, and M&M Golf are currently in. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for them… it is not the first time that the owners of these companies have been on the receiving end of legal action by Callaway.

You may wonder… “who the heck is King Sports, AT Golf, and M&M Golf?” Simply take a quick click-thru of the hyperlinks to visit their websites and you will immediately recognize the business that they are in... clone golf components.

The Complaint indicates that back in 1995 Callaway sued AM Prins Golf (a company owned by Prins Chang, Jimmy Chang, and Kevin Chang). In September of that year Callaway obtained a preliminary injunction prohibiting AM Prins from manufacturing, producing, distributing, circulating, and selling certain golf clubs and from infringing certain of Callaway Golf’s trademarks and patents. That lawsuit settled in late 1995 and a permanent injunction was entered.

Callaway’s Complaint explains that shortly after the settlement they discovered that one of the owners of AM Prince Golf, namely Jimmy Chang, allegedly violated the permanent injunction. Callaway sought to have AM Prins held in contempt for the violation and they ultimately signed a second settlement agreement.

A few years passed until Callaway again allegedly found AM Prins infringing their intellectual property. The result was a third settlement in which AM Prins agreed to pay liquidated damages if it infringed Callaway’s intellectual property in the future.

Callaway believes that in 1998 the Chang brothers separated and each began running a separate golf  business with Kevin at the AT Golf, Jimmy running King Sports, and Prins running AM Prins. A few years again passed until Callaway discovered all three of the companies allegedly infringing Callaway’s IP. Upon confrontation, all three brothers signed a settlement agreement in 2000.

Interestingly, the settlement agreement at was signed in 2000 included the following paragraph:

Now, Callaway alleges that the brothers are at it again. The Complaint alleges infringement of USPN’s 7083531, D498277, D507816, and D537894; as well as US federal trademark registrations 2180013 and 1918107. I have reproduced a few of the figures from the design patents and trademark registrations below.

The most entertaining part of the Complaint has to do with the allegations of false advertising. As most avid golfers know, the rear portion of Callaway’s top-of-the-line drivers are constructed of a non-metallic composite material. Apparently the Defendants like that construction and recognize the performance advantages, as well as the consumers perceived value in the design, but the Defendants did not like the cost associated with actually building the clubs that way. So what did they do… simply make an all metallic club head and call it the “Turbo Power Golf TPi Carbon” driver (implying  a carbon composite construction). Pretty amazing! After all, who is going to cut the club open and take a real good look at it? Well, Callaway is of course… especially when the Defendants advertised the club as “Turbo Power TP-i Carbon Square – Compare to Callaway FT-I at $499.” The Defendants even went so far as to advertise “[a]dd to that, a carbon graphite crown with more weight distribution to the perimeter of the club head and you have a very stable, solid feeling driver.”

Personally, if everything that the Complaint alleges is true, then I hope the Court hits the Defendants hard and puts them out of business. I would love to know who these golfers are that are buying these clubs and if they actually believe the clubs are going to perform anything like the real deal. What an amazing industry.

David Dawsey - Monitoring Clone Golf Club Patent Litigation

PS – Learn more about other Callaway patent infringement lawsuits here, here, and here.