Taking the ProV1 Dispute to the Supreme Court; Perhaps

Back in August I authored a post titled “US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit: ‘Irreconcilably Inconsistent Jury Verdicts’ Results in Remand for a New Trial Regarding the Original ProV1 Patent Infringement Lawsuit.” Then, in October we learned of the of the new trial dates. Well, the saga never ends, or seems to go too far. On December 11th Acushnet petitioned the Supreme Court. You may read the entire “Petition for a Writ of Certiorari” HERE, which is very interesting reading.

The excellent patent law blog PatentlyO has a nice short post HERE on what Acushnet’s beef is with the Federal Circuit’s holding. Specifically, Acushnet takes issue with the Federal Circuit’s holding that the “jury could have reasonably concluded that Acushnet failed to prove invalidity due to obviousness.” In Acushnet’s view, the appellate panel should not have given any regard to the jury’s legal finding.

Now, try to wrap you head around this…. there is a very real possibility that Acushnet is paying their lead litigation attorney almost as much as they pay to their highest paid players. Thus, if I were Acushnet’s general counsel, I would require their entire army of outside litigation counsel to wear Titleist hats and FootJoy apparel around the clock. However, I suppose the legal fees are a drop in the bucket when you consider that Acushnet admits that it has sold nearly $2 billion worth of Pro V1 balls! That equates to selling almost $450 worth of Pro V1 balls every minute of every day for the past 8.5 years!

David Dawsey  – The IP Golf Guy

PS – click HERE to read more about litigation in the golf industry