Trademark Wars – Callaway vs. TaylorMade (2014 Edition)

Written By: Tony Covey

The annual war of words, nay,the annual war for words between Callaway and TaylorMade has resumed. And no, this isn’t a repeat from last July.

If you’ve got a few minutes for a brief history lesson, I suggest you check out previous stories on the National Advertising Division’s (NAD) ruling on Callaway’s marketing of the RAZR Fit Extreme as the Longest Driver in Golf, as well as last season’s dueling Trademark claims on SLIDER (Callaway) and SLDR (TaylorMade).

This latest chapter begins with TaylorMade and Callaway filing Trademark applications for “XR” all of seven days apart.

In the interest of sweating the details, it should be pointed out that TaylorMade was actually the first to submit its filing. I don’t mean to imply that TaylorMade is in the right here, only that it was first to pull the trigger.

As I often do when these type of situations arise, I will now pause a moment for anyone who seriously wants to argue coincidence.

Anybody?

One of these companies is quite obviously screwing with the other.

Never mind who’s on first, who’s on top?

TaylorMade Screwing with Callaway?

Callaway’s filing has a logo, and it’s worth mentioning that TaylorMade’s filing doesn’t. This proves absolutely nothing, but could suggest that when Callaway filed, they did so with actual intent.

Given that TaylorMade has just announced R15 and AeroBurner, it’s unlikely the company has any short to mid-term plans for anything called XR, while for Callaway, XR is next-in-the-pipeline, coming soon, kind of stuff.

I can’t state this as 100% indisputable fact, but I’ve heard that Callaway has…or maybe had every intent of calling the early 2015 successor to X2 Hot the Callaway XR.

If I have reason to believe that the next Callaway driver is going to be called XR, then it’s plenty reasonable to assume that TaylorMade knows it too. Why not try and beat Callaway to the punch…at least as far as the US Trademark office is concerned?

Is TaylorMade simply trying to take advantage of what may be a later-than-it-should-have-been filing from Callaway?

It’s not hard to make a compelling argument that this is a case of TaylorMade trying to complicate things for its #1 rival, and perhaps force it to spend a little extra money in the process.

I could also argue that if these Trademark shenanigans actually delay the release of another Callaway driver or two, then TaylorMade might actually be doing Callaway a favor, but let’s save that one for another day.

Callaway Screwing with TaylorMade?

If we’re going to consider accusing TaylorMade of corporate shenanigans, it’s equally fair to ask exactly what the hell Callaway might be thinking naming a line of clubs XR to begin with.

For those who don’t know, over the last 12 years or so, TaylorMade has produced a handful of non-conforming XR Series drivers for the Japanese market.

TaylorMade may not have included an XR logo in its Trademark filing because, well…they already have one. And since we’re being honest here, allowing for the fact that there are only so many ways to write XR; doesn’t Callaway’s look a bit like what TaylorMade already stamped on its clubs?

While TaylorMade’s XR isn’t as entrenched in our relatively mainstream consciousness as its R-Series (or Burner Series for that matter), from an apples to apples perspective, a Callaway XR driver wouldn’t be wholly dissimilar to something called a TaylorMade Legacy.

With a near limitless pool of potential product names to skim from, would Callaway seriously go with something that TaylorMade has already used?

At a time when Callaway is trying to differentiate the rest of the industry, recycling a name (even one that’s not particularly well-known) from its #1 competitor doesn’t make much sense either.

If the possibility that TaylorMade is screwing with Callaway is unsavory, the possibility that Callaway might be screwing with TaylorMade is just confusing.

No Comment

I reached out to representatives from both companies and both succinctly declined to comment for the record.

What I take from that is a likelihood that legal departments are probably already involved, and are likely exchanging threating letters on the regular.

Believe me when I tell you that legal departments, and these two in particular, absolutely thrive on sending letters.

These sort of disputes are far from uncommon in the golf industry, but anecdotal evidence suggests that they’re popping up more frequently between Callaway and TaylorMade.

How This Ends

We’ll have to wait to see how this plays out. My guess is that Callaway releases an XR Driver (or two or three) in the spring, but it’s probably going to take some behind the scenes horsetrading (the kind of stuff we’ll never hear about) to make any Trademark problems go away.

This latest clash speaks not only to the competitive nature of both companies, but also reaffirms everything we’ve learned over the last two years; at corporate level, these two really don’t like each other very much.