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Golf madness strikes Newport

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

The soi disant Intellectual Property Office has gone a bit golf mad.  In a new page on their website, they report that Newport is the home of both intellectual property (really?) and the 2010 Ryder Cup, which is due to tee off on October 1st.  They also use the opportunity to provide some tasty facts and stories about IP and golf, the most unusual of which (to this Kat's eyes at least) is that there is a weblog that exists purely for the purposes of looking at IP aspects of golf (The IP Golf Guy), which is worth a look if only to see how much there is to say on the subject (quite a lot, apparently).

Right: The IPKat and friends try their paws at golf.

In relation to golf and IP, the IPO mention the surprising story of the Titleist Pro V1, also known as the "billion dollar golf ball" (and available from all good John Lewis stores), which has been the subject of a rather large patent dispute in the US.  They also point out the dispute about whether Newport rap superstars Goldie Lookin Chain were infringing copyright in an Alicia Keys song.  What this has to do with golf is quite beyond the IPKat but, for some Friday fun, the video below is well worth a look, provided it hasn't been taken down by YouTube.

If all that isn't enough golf- and Newport-related trivia for you, the IPKat has noticed that there have also been a surprising number of golf-related patent decisions coming out of the IPO in recent times, some of which this Kat has had the pleasure to summarise in his regular CIPA journal columns.  These include decisions relating to patentability of a golf putter (Hideaki Koiwai, BL O/373/07), a wrist-mounted golf swing analyser (Suunto Oy, BL O/089/10), a method of determining the length of a golf club (Darran Bird, BL O/188/10), a method of mapping a golf course (Sports Analysis Limited, BL O/076/09), and a golf driving range complex (David Evans, BL O/175/10).  Clearly the IPO is on to something about golf and IP being an interesting mix.

Full post as published by IPKat on September 24, 2010 (boomark / email).