Boy golfers are passionate about their golf gear! I have been blown away by the number of inquiries I receive regarding the patent litigation surrounding handheld golf GPS range finders. A lot of golfers must be concerned about the future of Natalie’s SkyCaddie endorsement deal.

As you may recall from these prior posts (initial, update 1, update 2, update 3, update 4, and update 5), on May 11th GPS Industries and Optimal IP Holdings filed a patent infringement lawsuit against several defendants (3:07CV0831-K, Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division). GPS Industries then singled out SkyHawke (maker of SkyCaddie) and filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. In response, SkyHawke filed a pretty compelling response to the preliminary injunction motion. The court then denied the preliminary injunction motion.

As I mentioned in my prior post, the case has now entered the slow-motion stage of the litigation, which involves the exchange of a ton of information between the parties that is not filed with the court (and therefore never seen by the readers of Golf-Patents.com). Fortunately we have been given a rare glimpse into the behind the scenes information exchange because the Plaintiffs recently had to request the approval of the court to supplement their initial “preliminary infringement contentions” against L1 Technologies (maker of the iGolf line of products).

The supplemental preliminary infringement contentions related to L1 Technologies contains some fascinating information related to how the Plaintiffs believe the L1 products to be infringing the patent-in-suit. Click HERE (and skip to page 20 for an interesting claim-chart breakdown of the allegedly infringing L1 product) for part 1, and click HERE for part 2.

Interesting stuff, especially if you love golf technology. Aside from the ProV1 patent dispute, this case is one of the most interesting golf lawsuits in quite some time.

David Dawsey  – Monitoring Golf Patent Infringement Lawsuits