OK, the title may be a little misleading. Callaway and Acushnet did settle a patent infringement lawsuit, just not the lawsuit that has garnered so much recent publicity.

Regular readers of the Golf-Patents blog will recall that Callaway and Acushnet (parent company of Titleist and Cobra) have been fighting it out over more than just the ProV1’s. A golf club patent dispute between the two has been the ugly step-child of the more glamorous, and widely reported, golf ball patent lawsuit. In fact, I did not see any press releases or reports on the fact that the golf club patent infringement lawsuit was settled about a week ago.

If you need a refresher on the driver lawsuit:

As you may recall from a prior post, on June 8, 2007 Callaway filed a golf club patent infringement lawsuit alleging that Acushnet has willfully infringed 5 Callaway patents. Then, as discussed in a subsequent post, on July 12, 2007 Acushnet filed their Answer to the Complaint thereby stating (i) that Acushnet does not infringe the Callaway patents and alleging that the Callaway patents are invalid, and (ii) returned the favor and accusing Callaway of infringing two of Acushnet’s patents. Callaway responded at the end of August 2007 (post here) stating that they do not infringe the Acushnet patents and allege that the Acushnet patents (7041003 and 6960142) are invalid!

Then, another post reported that Acushnet has filed their Second Amended Answer to the Callaway Complaint. As you may recall, the original Complaint alleges that King Cobra 454 Comp, King Cobra F Speed, King Cobra HS9 F Speed, King Cobra HS9 M Speed, King Cobra LD F Speed, Titleist 905R, Titleist 905S, and Titleist 905T clubs infringe one, or more, of the Callaway patents. The Answer alleges that the Callaway FT-i, FT-5, X-460, X-460 Tour, Big Bertha Fusion FT-3, and Big Bertha 460 clubs infringe one, or more, of the Acushnet patents. Now, the Second Amended Answer adds Callaway’s Hyper X and Hyper X Tour clubs to the list of allegedly infringing products and adds USPN 7140975 to the other two Acushnet patents that they accuse Callaway of infringing.

Thus, this driver infringement lawsuit stretched for almost a year and a half and basically included virtually every driver that Acushnet and Callaway have recently launched. So, needless to say, there was some money at stake (but probably not as much as their golf ball dispute). As with most litigation, there was plenty of money invested in discovery and depositions (see this post); not to mention the money spent by the USGA responding to a subpoena served on them by Acushnet (see this post).

Well, it is finally over and we will most likely never know what brought it to a resolution, or if any money changed hands. Bummer, but at least it is over. Click HERE to read the boilerplate Stipulated Order of Dismissal.

David Dawsey – Monitoring Golf Club Patent Litigation