Callaway Takes a Three Wood to TaylorMade's Crotch

by Eric Horowitz, ShakedownSports

Oh those crazy golf club manufacturers and their lawyers. They love suing more than Phil Mickelson love supersizing. This week Callaway filed a lawsuit claiming that TaylorMade violated its patents on three golf clubs and a covering for a golf ball. Like any good capitalist enterprise, Callaway is demanding restitution.

The maker of Big Bertha and Steelhead brand clubs is seeking monetary damages and an order that all the infringing TaylorMade products be destroyed. The company also wants an order permanently blocking TaylorMade from using the disputed technology.

Wait a second... they want all the infringing products to be destroyed. Does include clubs that have already been sold ? Are men in black suits going to showup at people's houses, break some golf clubs over their knees, and then leave peacefully? They could at least donate the unsold clubs to some impoverished third world country. I don't think they have too many quality Big Bertha drivers in Bangladesh.

TaylorMade, on the other hand, sees the situation a little bit differently. They say they've done nothing wrong and even claim that Callaway is infringing on their patents. This is all probably the patent office's fault. In the future it might be a good idea for them to require golf club diagrams to be a little more specific than a stick with big metal semi-ellipse on the end.