Has Patent Protection in the Golf Industry Gone Out of Control?

Patent Attorney: Of course not! Protect it all.

Golf Equipment Manufacturer: We spend $__ millions in R&D every year, we must protect our intellectual property or we would just be giving our R&D to the competition. Plus, all of our competitors are trying to protect everything!

Golfer: I wish the equipment manufacturers would just save the legal fees and reduce the price of the products.

Who is correct? Well, at one point or another I could see myself taking all three positions.

But… this week a design patent issued that made me look at the scope of protection from all three viewpoints. Now keep in mind that I love golf patents and golf equipment. I am the golfer that looks at every feature of a golf club and would like to think that I appreciate the finer points of a club’s design. The design patent is USPN D545390 titled “Portion of a Golf Club Head” and is directed to a portion of the score lines on the face of a driver (a figure from which is reproduced below).

My initial reaction was… OK, so what are they actually protecting? Seems crazy.

Upon further review I thought… ahh, the center score lines are getting wider as they go down the club face, regardless of what the non-center score lines are doing. Pretty cool.

Finally, after a little more reflection I accepted the design patent as a smart i.p. strategy. After all, design patents are relatively inexpensive and increasing width score lines are unique and have the potential of looking good on the face of a driver. Why not protect it with a design patent?

Congratulations Cleveland Golf, interesting strategy… I like it.
                    
Dave Dawsey – The Golfing Patent Attorney