 I had some disturbing news the weekend!
Evidently Bridgestone are going after Acushnet in some sort of legal battle over the design of the ProV1.
They apparently claim that their design was stolen by Acushnet.
The professional that I was talking to who seemed quite informed on this matter understood that Acushnet had made an offer of settlement to Bridgestone but they had rejected this.
What Bridgestone have demanded is that Acushnet pay them $1 per ball for every Pro V1 ever produced and sold.
If this is indeed true, then surely the Acushnet/Titleist/Footjoy/Cobra etc. name will almost certainly be driven into insolvency.
Anybody else heard anything?
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Wasn't this news from many many years ago?
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 Spooky this,the Pro V1 has a cover that actually lasts a round yet the Bridgestones peel back if you even fart on 'em.So if Acushnet pinched the design,they at least make them properly
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 losing $1 for every ball sold still leaves them making a lot of profit on the balls.
The general litigation against Acushnet for the Prov1 is probably why they bought a anew ball this year.
It's patently obviuos that Bridgestone has got a lot of balls to do this though.
Taz
That made an awful lot of reading just to get to the simple paragraph of the court ruling at hte end.
Mind you I have always said that Titleist are just followers rather than innovators.
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The revoltionalised golf with their balata tour ball in the fifties
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 'losing $1 for every ball sold still leaves them making a lot of profit on the balls.'
Ah Yes if they started Tomorrow, But how many Balls has the 'No.1 Ball In Golf' clocked up over the years?
Lets just say No Company could afford to pay that, not even microsoft..
imagine if bill Gates ahd to pay $1 for every windows he ever sold?
Big Numbers..
Its a Load of Balls if you Ask Me like ;)
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Well - the new ProV1 has been launched and how quiet was that then?
Hardly any hype whatsoever.
I haven't even had anything through from the Titleist website which is most unusual!
Something's going on and it seems very ominous.
Top players leaving the name, why? Can't they afford to pay them - what is going on?
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what will the new leading ball be? it looks like the new v and v1x arent up to scratch.
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Opens the Door Quite Wide for Callaway and the Nike Boys....
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and srixon, says the man who has just bought ten dozen z-urs on ebay
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I know, too much time on my hands but I have to argue, Bill Gates could afford to pay $1 for every copy of windows ever sold without flinching, when it was lat measured his wealth stood at $88 billion, by 2008 there are expected to be 2 billion personal computers sold world wide, this includes Linux and apple systems further lowering the number of potential Windows systems. Not sure how well Titleist / Acushnet would withstand such a blow, havent got that much spare time ha.
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yes but in context Paul A $1 to a Golf ball is like $50+ to a copy of windows...
thats a heck of a lot of money....
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Ok guys
as i understand this from the pro's etc that i have spoken to the pro v's infringe patents held by Bridgestone. During the legal argument Acushney have offered to pay Bridgestone $1 for every 1 Dozen balls sold worldwide! Bridgestone have alledgedly declined this as they feel they would get more through the court, this occured in march(ish) 2005 and acushnet counter sued Bridgestone not to be out done Callaway sued Acushnet over ball patents related to when they bought out Top-Flite, tho how top-flite balls can be anything near pro v's is beyond me. All this means is U.S. lawyers get rich and price of our golf balls goes up. It will only become news if at one of these court squabbles Titleist loses and production is hit etc but thge U.S. legal system will probably go round for years before anything at all ever happens! :-)
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