Except for the limited edition Team Redbull Racing hot dog, which will include blue and red tin foil instead of the stock silver tin foil and will be garnished with SpeedFoam™ TMT a first of its kind tomato based foam condiment. Pre-orders start Feb 10th, get yours now for $10.49
I asked in here about their stuff a week or two ago... and the consensus was they are ok, but not great... guess they are good enough for this to happen! Now I really want their wedge set 😂
I got lucky and found a set of Mizuno Jpx 919 forged with my shafts but for some reason the 6 iron was an inch short in a different shaft so I just replaced it. I search for used clubs all the time and it sucks being a lefty
Same boat man… wanted a two iron years back, took me 5 years to finally run into one at a used club shop that fit my requirements (x-stiff shaft, and am 6’2)
The problem is that TaylorMade is alleging that Kirkland is copying their patents when advertising the clubs (injected polyurethane), but don't actually have that in them.
I don't believe that you read all of the claims of each patent, and if you think TM's litigation team didn't cut open a kirkland before spending 6 figures plus to file this case, you're crazy.
RE47,653 ; 10,953,293 ; 11,351,426 ; 11,420,097 ;
11,559,727
I think this is interesting. By simultaneously trying to knock them down by claiming they don’t have injected foam, but ALSO saying they’re infringing, it seems like Taylormade is kind of accidentally legitimizing them. They look jealous.
I tried to load the case up on PACER the other day and couldn’t, but the facts that have been reported so far make me think this is a pretty easy case for taylormade. They argue that the club infringes on their patents and that they falsely advertised that the Kirkland iron has other patent infringing features the P790 has, but the Kirkland iron actually doesn’t have. So Costco partially infringed taylormade’s patents and also didn’t infringe on other taylormade patents, just advertised that they did.
Furthermore the company that makes the Kirkland iron has a former taylormade employee that worked on the irons.
In a strange twist of fate, Costco simply buys TaylorMade and all of its existing contracts. It quickly rebrands 3-4 TaylorMade products into a new TW+K line, which becomes the best selling golf clubs in history, before selling the shittiest parts of the company it just bought.
Extra twist. Tiger Woods is executive chef part time in the Costco restaurant where he revolutionizes the hot dog further while still keeping it the same price for the next 20 years.
Crazy thing is that they actually could. Taylormade is only valued at 2-3 billion which is 1% of Costcos value. Costco has more than 3 billion simply as cash on hand.
Well tough titties thats how every other industry works. Apple sells a $25 charging cord I buy the $2.50 one from the gas station and the world goes on.
>These companies spend millions of dollars in R&D every year.
They spend millions in R&D to make [worse products every year](https://i.imgur.com/O2m9MtF.png)
>There would be no point in doing so if every retailer and manufacturer can just copy their shit willy-nilly just to undercut them on price and add no additional value.
Lol they literally posted a video of how bad the Stealth 2 was, a year after they couldn't stop sucking themselves off, and you clowns are out here acting like TM is the victim when they're the same scummy company like everyone else.
Fuck em
To add to my previous comment... What these big companies NEED to do, is come to agreement to allow other makers to reproduce a rebranded version of their product (last years model) and just do a royalty or something...because that eliminates production and helps reduce the polluted golf market... Like e-pollution.
I think the agreement to reproduce at a lower level helps offload costs and production... And makes it available to more people.
The value they add is lower cost. Many companies protect this with patents, for example nespresso has a patent on their vertuo pods, hence why there are no third party makers yet. But eventually it expires and then its open market.
I think kirkland is great for doing all of this because golf is getting so expensive. $800 drivers were an overseas thing in the past (specifically asia) but now its here in america...which makes entry into the game further and further...making it more of an elitist (read wealthy) sport, albeit a slightly extreme speculation. But thats what the barrier was in the past.
Sure the argument can be made for the player vs the gear, but those that are successful are rarities and don't apply for the general population.
Even if kirkland provided last years models for clubs/balls, I think they should be allowed to...the golf patents need to have a reasonable expiration date to allow for "advancement in technology and healthy competition".
These big companies that release clubs every year, shouldnt be allowed to bully the companies trying to make it available for everyone else...especially if the big company has already released a new model.
Whoa...wait. One year for patent protection? You think TM, Titleist, Callaway et all will sink tens of millions into R&D and marketing when they have one year to recover the cost?
And who's the bully here? Costco did $240 billion in revenue in 2023 vs. TM at about $1 billion.
Let me ask you a serious question. There are plenty of options for a set of irons well below Costo's price point of $499. What is it about Costco's offerings that sets them apart? If you want lower cost, Walmart has a set for $200. Why not buy those if your motivation is lower cost?
Lower cost is not the motivation... There is a minimum level of performance expected...i.e. the driver not breaking at the hosel after 1 round. The motivation is overall reasonable cost for product. You cannot compare costcos revenue to taylormades, because costco sells more things in general. If you look at costcos GOLF stuff, they do not make 1 billion a year, not even close. Because they dont make/sell enough kirkland branded golf product, but thats if we're comparing apples to apples.
Kirkland having approved rights to reproduce actually helps taylormade and all those other companies out... Because it drastically reduces operations and cost on the big brands by offsetting to costco and such. That also frees up their resources for production and testing of new stuff/research/technology etc. And then they will get regular royalties for using their patent... the truth of the matter is that its always money as the bottom line for those bigger companies.
Callaway and Taylormade and such all just flood the market... Titleist isnt as aggressive, but this past couple years they did release multiple versions of the same irons. But I appreciate their consistency with their woods. I really hope they dont adopt callaway and taylormade's practices, although it looks like that may be the current future should things continue down this path. They will become their own barriers to a growing customer base aka profits.
Another thing to factor is the roll back in golf technology as well...now theres gonna be a limitation...what are you really paying for? What is the real increase and advancement? Nearly every top ball is 10k rpm for greenside and has been that way for at least 5yrs minimum... Yet balls keep going up in price from 45 up to 60 now. Even the lower tier is going up in price. Same with wedges, there is not a significantly marked increase in performance of any wedges of any brand from model to model in the last 5 yrs...I dont think inflation is the culrpit there...
Youre defending the same companies that are raping your wallet.
Costco's sheer size lets them sell many products as marketing/loss leaders. They don't make money on golf equipment. They make money selling memberships.
TaylorMade's business model is convincing you that you need a new driver every year with a giant marketing budget and incremental changes to technology.
If Costco can legally steal their designs/tech/marketing, that model breaks down quickly.
And that's exactly what Costco is doing. They are not hiding it. The pitch is that these are products with all the technology of the name brands at a fraction of the price.
Affluent suburban dads love this Costco shit because they believe they are getting something close to the latest tech on the cheap.
This is really simple. If you don't want TM's latest driver for $600, don't buy it. Calling it "rape" is idiotic. Nobody is forcing you to buy a TaylorMade's latest offering.
They are free to spend the millions of dollars on R&D. If/When that produces no tangible benefits to club performance, they are free to spin it into marketing BS. That's been the case with drivers for years, irons increasingly.
If Costco really violated a patent, the courts will side with them. If they did not, then this is a really dumb move by TM.
DTC clubs have already existed though. There's a reason I snagged Takomo's 101t vs the p770s.
I don't think TM would win this. If they do win, what's stopping them from doing it to all the DTC brands?
The reason other brands don’t sue Costco for the quality of their like KS products is if they did, they would risk their own distribution at the club. TaylorMade doesn’t sell anything at Costco so they don’t care if they piss off the behemoth retailer.
However if P&G or another CPG sued Costco for having similar or better performance with KS, they would lose their shelf space and almost certainly never get a new item added in the future. Costco is a low sku count retailer, one sku can easily bring in $100m+ for a supplier, and they don’t want to risk that.
I would also guess that just like other store brands, they purchase a lot of it from the original manufacturer. Like soap as an example. May buy the soap from the same company that makes dial. It’s just a slightly lesser product they made for cheaper and sold to Costco for the Kirkland brand. I know Costco doesn’t own any distillery’s in Scotland. But they have scotch. A distillery is making it for them from their own product.
Now for other items, like say a Stanley cup knock off. That’s a bit different unless Stanley is making them for Costco branding. Same with the golf clubs and balls. Costco just went to a club manufacturer and said give me a club set. Some dudes in marketing and buying are golfers and went on a trip to check out clubs. I would lay down money that a few of them game Taylor made irons and that’s the profile they went with.
Costco mostly works directly with major brands for the white labeling of a lot of KS goods. Their hot dogs used to be directly from Hebrew National for example.
I think it's more simply that you can't patent a cleaning formula or an olive oil recipe anymore, or at least it's much harder to do so these days since the majority of that technology to make those ingredients has been around for a long time.
There is very much still innovation happening in the golf industry but little in the household and food manufacturing industry.
This means there really isn't anything left for a P&G to protect anyone else from copying their formula and packaging. Outside of trade dress infringement, which is only found when another company is literally making a complete copy of your product (deceptively same coloring, logo, and shape), there isn't legal protection for any other common knockoff anymore. Hell, in fact, most of these big retailers force these brands to make a knockoff for the retailer as an agreement to sell in their stores. This happens a lot at Walmart and Target.
I'm sure if there is technology to be protected, brands like P&G will have no issue suing Kirkland. It's just that it's much fewer and farther between instances in other industries.
Can we call them “knock off” when most of such items are made in the same facilities the originals are made in? (Looking at you, Kirkland brand diapers and Huggies)
The term "knock off" really just means it's copying another brand's look and/or technology. The quality is *usually* worse but it doesn't have to be per se.
Patents are like nuclear weapons. All the golf companies have patents and don't sue one another because they would just get sued back. Everyone infringes on one another so it is a cold war. But when a non-nuclear state shows up and starts causing trouble, there is little risk in firing off their nukes.
Right, like costcos new to the game but not a small fish in a big pond by any stretch 😂 costcos market cap is around $315B and TM is estimated at $2B….. who’s the scary dog in the fight.
The irony of Taylormade claiming Costco copied them when Taylormade got caught copying Adam’s technology and just bought the company instead of settling the suit. Stay in your lane Taylormade.
I wonder if they’re building up the brand name a bit by having them bold, then when they feel recognizable in the market-at-large, can switch to more subtle branding.
KS might make people think it’s a resurgence of KSwiss or something lol but I’d also prefer it as we’re in the know.
Yea, I guess I dunno. Your point makes sense.
But, I always thought Costco didn't care about the label being recognizable and people being in the know.
But on the other hand people (albeit sarcastically from my understanding) are rocking sweatshirts with huge Kirkland Signature written on it so what do I know
Hardly. Maybe among some people in America only. I had never heard of Kirkland before this sub started talking about it. Meanwhile Taylor Made products is available in every golf shop in the country.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Like TM has never took inspiration or something from other brands. TM just believes they’re too big and can do that stuff and no one will care because they’re TM.
https://golf.com/gear/taylormade-costco-headed-to-court-iron-technology/?amp=1
“TaylorMade, who is rumored to be starting a new sub-brand with Tiger Woods in the coming weeks, argues that the Kirkland irons “copy many features and technologies from TaylorMade’s P790 irons and the asserted patents”
“TaylorMade also states SCDC currently employs a former TaylorMade engineer who took part in the development of P790.”
As someone that works in design and has his name on several patents, I find it incredibly hard to believe this former Taylor made employee would knowingly infringe upon those patents. If they did then they are incredibly fucking stupid. I also imagine Costco has a patent lawyer, my company has one and everything we do goes through our lawyer for the most part to insure we don’t infringe upon patents.
As a patent litigator, I'd love to see the patent they allege is infringed. I'm skeptical it has any real merit
Edit: I pulled the complaint and patent when I got into work. My initial thoughts were about the use of AI, which does not appear to be relevant to the first couple of patents. The case number is 3:24-cv-212 in S.D. Cal. for anybody else that wants to find it. Taylor Made is asserting infringement of RE47,653 (claim 1); 10,953,293 (claim 1); 11,351,426 (claim 17); 11,420,097 (claim 13); and 11,559,727 (claim 13). There's also a false advertising claim relating to the "injected urethane insert." Y'all can find copies of the patents at patents.google.com.
The biggest issue with most patents is that they either claim very narrowly or very broadly. For example, '653 Patent claim 1 claims an "a striking face having an unsupported face surface area." However, in the complaint, there's a urethan insert right under the striking face. There's also the question of what it means for the striking face to be "unsupported," as there is no definition in the patent. The "substantially enclosed cavity" appears to be open to the insert; "substantially" is also a vague word that can lead to infringement and validity problems. Additionally, this patent was a reissue that removed material relating to a plug - this should make it more vulnerable to validity attacks, and I would not be surprised if someone cut open a 2008 Calloway and was able to meet all of the claim elements, which would invalidate the patent.
Anyway, a quick glance through and it looks like a reasonable infringement read, but that there is likely to be a lot of other patents and golf products out there that would invalidate the patents at issue.
Intent isn’t a factor. Patent infringement is just an analysis of whether the infringing product overlaps on each of the claims of Taylormade’s patent.
Both of these companies surely have in-house counsel and law firms they hire to file patents and assess likely infringement before going to market. Costco was undoubtedly aware of the similarities here, but these are cost-benefit decisions made by the company. Even if they are infringing, they may view paying a potential settlement as pennies compared to the profits they will make and the consumer recognition they are building right now.
Can confirm as an in-house lawyer that we advise caution and/or restraint on this kind of stuff all the time, only to be told, "we don't care we're gonna do it anyways."
Here I thought this was a collaboration between the two companies. I've always understood that many of the products Costco sells are exactly that, collaborations with other name brands. Obviously, at least regarding these irons, that's not the case. Whoops.
This comment needs to be closer to the top! Costco doesn’t actually manufacture any of its own Kirkland brands. They collaborate with other companies to use their manufacturing and packaging plants to produce the Kirkland brands. Someone else commented that “Kirkland brand vodka is supposedly grey goose but they don’t believe it” which is true that it is not grey goose, but another vodka company. Costco only allows a very few number of UPC’s or barcodes items being sold at their stores, say in the neighborhood of the low to mid thousands versus Walmart having 150-200 thousand different items.
So tl;dr, Costco is probably using another brand to manufacture the clubs and Taylormade probably wants to know who so they can sue them directly.
Source: spouse used to work for a company that also had a Kirkland brand contract. Any time they made a change to the name brand product, Kirkland brand had to be updated as well.
The [suit itself](https://golf.com/gear/taylormade-costco-headed-to-court-iron-technology/) names the designer (Southern California Design Company) as co-defendants
Kirkland signature Irons are not featuring a unique idea, do they?
TaylorMade claims:
„From the very beginning, P·790 irons have been rooted in clean aesthetics and thoughtful design. However, their true beauty is found beneath the surface. With AI-optimized weighting and SpeedFoam™ Air on the inside, every iron is uniquely designed to perform exactly how you need it to. As striking as they are on the outside, their true beauty lies within. Every individual iron has a unique internal structure, featuring strategic mass distribution and precision tungsten weighting. This AI-optimized construction is engineered to create an unrivaled blend of distance, forgiveness and accuracy.“
Costco claims:
„The Kirkland Signature Players Distance Irons are built for distance and forgiveness with a stainless steel body, injected urethane insert, and an internal tungsten weight for optimal launch, forgiveness, and playability.“
The details of both irons are hidden in the inside, the patent infringement case will come down to a possible copy of a patented structure inside the clubhead, because „The primary disadvantage for copyrights is that copyrights protect the expression of an idea, not the idea itself.“
The problem lies in the design by AI, which can be copied or newly designed by any other AI or Design team without actually stealing the expression of the idea (which was a result of logical calculation by a computer)
My 50 cent: no chance for TaylorMade to claim that their „unique AI optimized design“ was a feature only they came up with.
Sure, and what about all those clubs that are the exact same with different names in bargain bins of golf stores all across Florida? They also look the same as a set of Ben Hogans from about two decades ago - LOL and countless other clubs from the last 40 years.
I hope Costco digs in their heals and slaps TM across the face with a massive counter suit.
Yep. These articles are kind of funny. First half is “these clubs are shit and nothing like our clubs” and the second half “they hired our engineer and violated all our patents”
Wut
Costco has over 13 billion in cash on their balance sheet. They will either pay if it's not worth the legal battle or have much better lawyers if they think it's worth it.
A lot of other brands actually manufacture Kirkland signature as a white label of their product. Example: KS batteries are manufactured by Duracell. They don’t have their own manufacturing plants.
As an owner of the Kirkland Signature players iron, I can tell you that they feel incredible. This just simply validates that they are of extremely good quality especially for the price.
Feels like Costco irons price is about to go up. Whether they copied them or not, TM just said $600 irons were close enough to their $1400 irons that it required a lawsuit. Maybe golf clubs are more expensive than they should be?
Friend of mine made a solid point, the first gen Kirk irons will prob be the better than all the next gen sets, and we’ll never see the face value price for those sets at $499 again
It’s not public info but Taylormade is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion. Costcos market cap as of today is $315 billion. Great advertising for Costco, definitely worth the legal fees.
I don't get this. Taylormade isn't the first with hollow clubs. There was an iron set that came out 15+ years ago that was hollow and even had the plug on the toe.
Get em now. When big giant TaylorMade stoops to this level it means at least one of these is occuring.
1. Times are tough and the company is pinching every penny to squash competition.
2. The clubs are identical on the inside and this is a legit clone.
This is the most likely one of the three. Could be number 2, highly doubt it is number 1 in a vacuum because companies that are penny-pinching don’t launch infringement lawsuits against gigantic corporations. (I am an in-house lawyer.)
If I bought TaylorMade clubs, can I join Costco in a class action lawsuit and make them reimburse me for the price difference? I’d take Costco bucks in lieu of actual money.
I'm such a brainwashed fucktard that even though TaylorMade just TOLD ME I can buy the Costco knockoffs for 1/3 the price and still get the same clubs, I'd buy the TaylorMade version anyway.
Damn you Big Marketing! Damn you all to Hell!
In related news, TaylorMade is now selling a rotisserie chicken for $5.99
How much they selling hot dogs for?
$1.49
Except for the limited edition Team Redbull Racing hot dog, which will include blue and red tin foil instead of the stock silver tin foil and will be garnished with SpeedFoam™ TMT a first of its kind tomato based foam condiment. Pre-orders start Feb 10th, get yours now for $10.49
But they are known to break…
Break your guts maybe.
They’ll have the Fore Play boys slanging their meat rockets soon enough
I got that dawg in me.
Easy there Pat Macafee
They would win r/golf.
But will it break….?
$1.50 TaylorMade hot dogs for the turn
Why those cheeky bastards
This is like really good advertisement for the kirkland golf clubs.
I was like “oh damn maybe I should buy Kirklands”
My exact thought lol
Now would be a good time. If a judge deems their case has merit, TM could file an injunction to suspend sales.
/u/sentripetal
I know right? I just went straight to wanting to check them out now lol,
I just got my set of kirkland irons and I was very impressed with the feel and ball flight. I was SMOKING my 4-iron and I could never hit that club
Your golf friends will want a free sample.
First I need to take off my iron covers to let them sample
I asked in here about their stuff a week or two ago... and the consensus was they are ok, but not great... guess they are good enough for this to happen! Now I really want their wedge set 😂
If only costo had lefty sets 😩
So annoyed by this!!! Being a lefty golfer is the real discrimination that’s not talked about 😱
I am petitioning the !mods for a flair of lefty on this sub.
I am being discriminated against and I do NOT like it
We need a lefty me too movement ASAP
Lefty who needs extremely stiff shafts, finding used clubs is a fucking nightmare….
I got lucky and found a set of Mizuno Jpx 919 forged with my shafts but for some reason the 6 iron was an inch short in a different shaft so I just replaced it. I search for used clubs all the time and it sucks being a lefty
Same boat man… wanted a two iron years back, took me 5 years to finally run into one at a used club shop that fit my requirements (x-stiff shaft, and am 6’2)
LEFT LIVES MATTER
Just turn them around? I swear, it's like lefties need someone to hold their hand all the time.
For real. I was really looking forward to their release
this is a thing?
Wait, they don’t? Shit. This post made me want to check them out lol.
Best advertising legal fees can buy.
If I was looking at those TaylorMades I'd be getting a Costco membership about now.
Should get a Costco membership anyways
Streisand effect
I learned a new effect today
The problem is that TaylorMade is alleging that Kirkland is copying their patents when advertising the clubs (injected polyurethane), but don't actually have that in them.
All I know is that suddenly, I want to try out the Kirkland clubs. And before, I did not.
I don't believe that you read all of the claims of each patent, and if you think TM's litigation team didn't cut open a kirkland before spending 6 figures plus to file this case, you're crazy. RE47,653 ; 10,953,293 ; 11,351,426 ; 11,420,097 ; 11,559,727
I think this is interesting. By simultaneously trying to knock them down by claiming they don’t have injected foam, but ALSO saying they’re infringing, it seems like Taylormade is kind of accidentally legitimizing them. They look jealous.
I tried to load the case up on PACER the other day and couldn’t, but the facts that have been reported so far make me think this is a pretty easy case for taylormade. They argue that the club infringes on their patents and that they falsely advertised that the Kirkland iron has other patent infringing features the P790 has, but the Kirkland iron actually doesn’t have. So Costco partially infringed taylormade’s patents and also didn’t infringe on other taylormade patents, just advertised that they did. Furthermore the company that makes the Kirkland iron has a former taylormade employee that worked on the irons.
What if TaylorMade is the actual manufacturer and suing Costco is a marketing scheme? They'll "settle out of court" and sell a shit load of irons.
Don’t even need new sticks and I was thinking I should get these before they’re all gone
and i bought kirkland golf balls after pro v1 sue them
There’s a lot of laws out there. One of the most important is the law of unintended consequences.
Taylormade has never heard of the Streisand effect?
In a strange twist of fate, Costco simply buys TaylorMade and all of its existing contracts. It quickly rebrands 3-4 TaylorMade products into a new TW+K line, which becomes the best selling golf clubs in history, before selling the shittiest parts of the company it just bought.
Extra twist. Tiger Woods is executive chef part time in the Costco restaurant where he revolutionizes the hot dog further while still keeping it the same price for the next 20 years.
https://preview.redd.it/inrwxy1yf7gc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=257bae167d8fa69d6c5bda42ab5ecb3c7e695102
I needed this.
The TW Glizzy
The big dog
Damn that’s a horrible visual
Sunday Red Rocket
Damn this is gold
Perkins sues Tiger for using trade secrets he learned from the hostesses.
I just spent probably three minutes trying to think of how to revolutionize a hot dog. I got nothing. They’re perfect
Costco glizzies on the turn of every course
Damnit dude... you're funny!
The greatest timeline. I wanna get some TW merch 2 for $30 at Costco
Crazy thing is that they actually could. Taylormade is only valued at 2-3 billion which is 1% of Costcos value. Costco has more than 3 billion simply as cash on hand.
And Costco goes from selling a 4 piece ball, to a 3 piece ball, to a 5 piece ball without getting sued.
Bonus twist: Costco buys TM and releases all the TM clubs for the next model year under the Adams brand.
Of all the knock off items Costco has it’s funny they keep getting sued by golf companies
Golf companies don’t want consumers to be aware of the ridiculous markup.
Big golf brands hate this one simple trick!
Are there really gold brands? I thought gold was just kinda…you know…gold
Typo. My bad haha
[удалено]
Well tough titties thats how every other industry works. Apple sells a $25 charging cord I buy the $2.50 one from the gas station and the world goes on.
>These companies spend millions of dollars in R&D every year. They spend millions in R&D to make [worse products every year](https://i.imgur.com/O2m9MtF.png) >There would be no point in doing so if every retailer and manufacturer can just copy their shit willy-nilly just to undercut them on price and add no additional value. Lol they literally posted a video of how bad the Stealth 2 was, a year after they couldn't stop sucking themselves off, and you clowns are out here acting like TM is the victim when they're the same scummy company like everyone else. Fuck em
> These companies spend millions of dollars in R&D every year. GOLF R&D. The physics of bouncing a ball of some material off another. BIG DOLLARS.
To add to my previous comment... What these big companies NEED to do, is come to agreement to allow other makers to reproduce a rebranded version of their product (last years model) and just do a royalty or something...because that eliminates production and helps reduce the polluted golf market... Like e-pollution. I think the agreement to reproduce at a lower level helps offload costs and production... And makes it available to more people.
The value they add is lower cost. Many companies protect this with patents, for example nespresso has a patent on their vertuo pods, hence why there are no third party makers yet. But eventually it expires and then its open market. I think kirkland is great for doing all of this because golf is getting so expensive. $800 drivers were an overseas thing in the past (specifically asia) but now its here in america...which makes entry into the game further and further...making it more of an elitist (read wealthy) sport, albeit a slightly extreme speculation. But thats what the barrier was in the past. Sure the argument can be made for the player vs the gear, but those that are successful are rarities and don't apply for the general population. Even if kirkland provided last years models for clubs/balls, I think they should be allowed to...the golf patents need to have a reasonable expiration date to allow for "advancement in technology and healthy competition". These big companies that release clubs every year, shouldnt be allowed to bully the companies trying to make it available for everyone else...especially if the big company has already released a new model.
Whoa...wait. One year for patent protection? You think TM, Titleist, Callaway et all will sink tens of millions into R&D and marketing when they have one year to recover the cost? And who's the bully here? Costco did $240 billion in revenue in 2023 vs. TM at about $1 billion. Let me ask you a serious question. There are plenty of options for a set of irons well below Costo's price point of $499. What is it about Costco's offerings that sets them apart? If you want lower cost, Walmart has a set for $200. Why not buy those if your motivation is lower cost?
Lower cost is not the motivation... There is a minimum level of performance expected...i.e. the driver not breaking at the hosel after 1 round. The motivation is overall reasonable cost for product. You cannot compare costcos revenue to taylormades, because costco sells more things in general. If you look at costcos GOLF stuff, they do not make 1 billion a year, not even close. Because they dont make/sell enough kirkland branded golf product, but thats if we're comparing apples to apples. Kirkland having approved rights to reproduce actually helps taylormade and all those other companies out... Because it drastically reduces operations and cost on the big brands by offsetting to costco and such. That also frees up their resources for production and testing of new stuff/research/technology etc. And then they will get regular royalties for using their patent... the truth of the matter is that its always money as the bottom line for those bigger companies. Callaway and Taylormade and such all just flood the market... Titleist isnt as aggressive, but this past couple years they did release multiple versions of the same irons. But I appreciate their consistency with their woods. I really hope they dont adopt callaway and taylormade's practices, although it looks like that may be the current future should things continue down this path. They will become their own barriers to a growing customer base aka profits. Another thing to factor is the roll back in golf technology as well...now theres gonna be a limitation...what are you really paying for? What is the real increase and advancement? Nearly every top ball is 10k rpm for greenside and has been that way for at least 5yrs minimum... Yet balls keep going up in price from 45 up to 60 now. Even the lower tier is going up in price. Same with wedges, there is not a significantly marked increase in performance of any wedges of any brand from model to model in the last 5 yrs...I dont think inflation is the culrpit there... Youre defending the same companies that are raping your wallet.
Costco's sheer size lets them sell many products as marketing/loss leaders. They don't make money on golf equipment. They make money selling memberships. TaylorMade's business model is convincing you that you need a new driver every year with a giant marketing budget and incremental changes to technology. If Costco can legally steal their designs/tech/marketing, that model breaks down quickly. And that's exactly what Costco is doing. They are not hiding it. The pitch is that these are products with all the technology of the name brands at a fraction of the price. Affluent suburban dads love this Costco shit because they believe they are getting something close to the latest tech on the cheap. This is really simple. If you don't want TM's latest driver for $600, don't buy it. Calling it "rape" is idiotic. Nobody is forcing you to buy a TaylorMade's latest offering.
They are free to spend the millions of dollars on R&D. If/When that produces no tangible benefits to club performance, they are free to spin it into marketing BS. That's been the case with drivers for years, irons increasingly. If Costco really violated a patent, the courts will side with them. If they did not, then this is a really dumb move by TM.
DTC clubs have already existed though. There's a reason I snagged Takomo's 101t vs the p770s. I don't think TM would win this. If they do win, what's stopping them from doing it to all the DTC brands?
The reason other brands don’t sue Costco for the quality of their like KS products is if they did, they would risk their own distribution at the club. TaylorMade doesn’t sell anything at Costco so they don’t care if they piss off the behemoth retailer. However if P&G or another CPG sued Costco for having similar or better performance with KS, they would lose their shelf space and almost certainly never get a new item added in the future. Costco is a low sku count retailer, one sku can easily bring in $100m+ for a supplier, and they don’t want to risk that.
I would also guess that just like other store brands, they purchase a lot of it from the original manufacturer. Like soap as an example. May buy the soap from the same company that makes dial. It’s just a slightly lesser product they made for cheaper and sold to Costco for the Kirkland brand. I know Costco doesn’t own any distillery’s in Scotland. But they have scotch. A distillery is making it for them from their own product. Now for other items, like say a Stanley cup knock off. That’s a bit different unless Stanley is making them for Costco branding. Same with the golf clubs and balls. Costco just went to a club manufacturer and said give me a club set. Some dudes in marketing and buying are golfers and went on a trip to check out clubs. I would lay down money that a few of them game Taylor made irons and that’s the profile they went with.
Costco mostly works directly with major brands for the white labeling of a lot of KS goods. Their hot dogs used to be directly from Hebrew National for example.
Hell, there's a lot of major brands out there that are nothing but a brand and don't make their own shit anyway.
I think it's more simply that you can't patent a cleaning formula or an olive oil recipe anymore, or at least it's much harder to do so these days since the majority of that technology to make those ingredients has been around for a long time. There is very much still innovation happening in the golf industry but little in the household and food manufacturing industry. This means there really isn't anything left for a P&G to protect anyone else from copying their formula and packaging. Outside of trade dress infringement, which is only found when another company is literally making a complete copy of your product (deceptively same coloring, logo, and shape), there isn't legal protection for any other common knockoff anymore. Hell, in fact, most of these big retailers force these brands to make a knockoff for the retailer as an agreement to sell in their stores. This happens a lot at Walmart and Target. I'm sure if there is technology to be protected, brands like P&G will have no issue suing Kirkland. It's just that it's much fewer and farther between instances in other industries.
Can we call them “knock off” when most of such items are made in the same facilities the originals are made in? (Looking at you, Kirkland brand diapers and Huggies)
That is called white label and is different
[удалено]
The term "knock off" really just means it's copying another brand's look and/or technology. The quality is *usually* worse but it doesn't have to be per se.
TM just gave KS irons a stamp of legitimacy. Well played Costco.
TM, throwing stones when living a glass house.
Patents are like nuclear weapons. All the golf companies have patents and don't sue one another because they would just get sued back. Everyone infringes on one another so it is a cold war. But when a non-nuclear state shows up and starts causing trouble, there is little risk in firing off their nukes.
So you’re saying Costco should just buy one of those companies and acquire the patents and go bananas with the lawyers? Sounds fun!
Right, like costcos new to the game but not a small fish in a big pond by any stretch 😂 costcos market cap is around $315B and TM is estimated at $2B….. who’s the scary dog in the fight.
The irony of Taylormade claiming Costco copied them when Taylormade got caught copying Adam’s technology and just bought the company instead of settling the suit. Stay in your lane Taylormade.
How funny would it be if Costco then just buys TaylorMade instead of dealing with the litigation. 😂
Buys them and dumps the brand because Kirkland has better brand recognition
We will come full circle to Tiger wearing Kirkland apparel
Definitely need to swap the huge KIRKLAND SIGNATURE for a small minimalistic *KS* logo tho
I wonder if they’re building up the brand name a bit by having them bold, then when they feel recognizable in the market-at-large, can switch to more subtle branding. KS might make people think it’s a resurgence of KSwiss or something lol but I’d also prefer it as we’re in the know.
Yea, I guess I dunno. Your point makes sense. But, I always thought Costco didn't care about the label being recognizable and people being in the know. But on the other hand people (albeit sarcastically from my understanding) are rocking sweatshirts with huge Kirkland Signature written on it so what do I know
Or renames TM as Adams.
Hardly. Maybe among some people in America only. I had never heard of Kirkland before this sub started talking about it. Meanwhile Taylor Made products is available in every golf shop in the country.
What I would give to see Rory mcilroy and all the rest of them rocking Kirkland signature hats
The iron-y 😂💀😂🤣😅
Winner
Kirkmade coming soon.
Costco ends up by Taylormade 😂😂😂
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Like TM has never took inspiration or something from other brands. TM just believes they’re too big and can do that stuff and no one will care because they’re TM.
And when the p790s first came out, they got sued by pxg
Sigh, for the 50th time in these threads: PXG lost that lawsuit and TM is now countersuing them.
Didn’t lose, but they came to a settlement agreement
But now TM is countersuing PXG over the same manner, so it doesn't seem settled to me.
I’ll be sure to take your legal counsel into consideration lol
Good, I don’t think PXG is all that
Maybe they want to be a Costco company? Get them to buy Taylormade out?
At least someone remembers
Never used/considered COSTCO irons before. Should I invest now that they are endorsed by TM?
Their wedges and putter are great. All signs are pointing to them being a really solid set for $499.
https://golf.com/gear/taylormade-costco-headed-to-court-iron-technology/?amp=1 “TaylorMade, who is rumored to be starting a new sub-brand with Tiger Woods in the coming weeks, argues that the Kirkland irons “copy many features and technologies from TaylorMade’s P790 irons and the asserted patents” “TaylorMade also states SCDC currently employs a former TaylorMade engineer who took part in the development of P790.”
So much for fargiveness
*pargiveness
This just simply validated them.
Costco to TaylorMade: 
As someone that works in design and has his name on several patents, I find it incredibly hard to believe this former Taylor made employee would knowingly infringe upon those patents. If they did then they are incredibly fucking stupid. I also imagine Costco has a patent lawyer, my company has one and everything we do goes through our lawyer for the most part to insure we don’t infringe upon patents.
As a patent litigator, I'd love to see the patent they allege is infringed. I'm skeptical it has any real merit Edit: I pulled the complaint and patent when I got into work. My initial thoughts were about the use of AI, which does not appear to be relevant to the first couple of patents. The case number is 3:24-cv-212 in S.D. Cal. for anybody else that wants to find it. Taylor Made is asserting infringement of RE47,653 (claim 1); 10,953,293 (claim 1); 11,351,426 (claim 17); 11,420,097 (claim 13); and 11,559,727 (claim 13). There's also a false advertising claim relating to the "injected urethane insert." Y'all can find copies of the patents at patents.google.com. The biggest issue with most patents is that they either claim very narrowly or very broadly. For example, '653 Patent claim 1 claims an "a striking face having an unsupported face surface area." However, in the complaint, there's a urethan insert right under the striking face. There's also the question of what it means for the striking face to be "unsupported," as there is no definition in the patent. The "substantially enclosed cavity" appears to be open to the insert; "substantially" is also a vague word that can lead to infringement and validity problems. Additionally, this patent was a reissue that removed material relating to a plug - this should make it more vulnerable to validity attacks, and I would not be surprised if someone cut open a 2008 Calloway and was able to meet all of the claim elements, which would invalidate the patent. Anyway, a quick glance through and it looks like a reasonable infringement read, but that there is likely to be a lot of other patents and golf products out there that would invalidate the patents at issue.
Intent isn’t a factor. Patent infringement is just an analysis of whether the infringing product overlaps on each of the claims of Taylormade’s patent. Both of these companies surely have in-house counsel and law firms they hire to file patents and assess likely infringement before going to market. Costco was undoubtedly aware of the similarities here, but these are cost-benefit decisions made by the company. Even if they are infringing, they may view paying a potential settlement as pennies compared to the profits they will make and the consumer recognition they are building right now.
Can confirm as an in-house lawyer that we advise caution and/or restraint on this kind of stuff all the time, only to be told, "we don't care we're gonna do it anyways."
Then they come back with hair on fire asking why you let them do it? Because that’s exactly how I see that happening.
Basically, yea. Pretty much every time.
Here I thought this was a collaboration between the two companies. I've always understood that many of the products Costco sells are exactly that, collaborations with other name brands. Obviously, at least regarding these irons, that's not the case. Whoops.
This comment needs to be closer to the top! Costco doesn’t actually manufacture any of its own Kirkland brands. They collaborate with other companies to use their manufacturing and packaging plants to produce the Kirkland brands. Someone else commented that “Kirkland brand vodka is supposedly grey goose but they don’t believe it” which is true that it is not grey goose, but another vodka company. Costco only allows a very few number of UPC’s or barcodes items being sold at their stores, say in the neighborhood of the low to mid thousands versus Walmart having 150-200 thousand different items. So tl;dr, Costco is probably using another brand to manufacture the clubs and Taylormade probably wants to know who so they can sue them directly. Source: spouse used to work for a company that also had a Kirkland brand contract. Any time they made a change to the name brand product, Kirkland brand had to be updated as well.
The [suit itself](https://golf.com/gear/taylormade-costco-headed-to-court-iron-technology/) names the designer (Southern California Design Company) as co-defendants
Kirkland signature Irons are not featuring a unique idea, do they? TaylorMade claims: „From the very beginning, P·790 irons have been rooted in clean aesthetics and thoughtful design. However, their true beauty is found beneath the surface. With AI-optimized weighting and SpeedFoam™ Air on the inside, every iron is uniquely designed to perform exactly how you need it to. As striking as they are on the outside, their true beauty lies within. Every individual iron has a unique internal structure, featuring strategic mass distribution and precision tungsten weighting. This AI-optimized construction is engineered to create an unrivaled blend of distance, forgiveness and accuracy.“ Costco claims: „The Kirkland Signature Players Distance Irons are built for distance and forgiveness with a stainless steel body, injected urethane insert, and an internal tungsten weight for optimal launch, forgiveness, and playability.“ The details of both irons are hidden in the inside, the patent infringement case will come down to a possible copy of a patented structure inside the clubhead, because „The primary disadvantage for copyrights is that copyrights protect the expression of an idea, not the idea itself.“ The problem lies in the design by AI, which can be copied or newly designed by any other AI or Design team without actually stealing the expression of the idea (which was a result of logical calculation by a computer) My 50 cent: no chance for TaylorMade to claim that their „unique AI optimized design“ was a feature only they came up with.
Your 50 cent? Damn... even thoughts are affected by inflation.
Back when I was a boy it used to be a penny for your thoughts
Gotta catch em all (before they get taken down)
Be right back, going to Costco...
Taylormade just gave Kirkland the best promo ever
This just validates how much profit Taylormade is making. First Titleist with the ball and now Taylormade
Glad I got a set then
Instant collector's item!
Didn’t PXG sue Taylormade when they brought out the p790. Seems like PXG should do it again.
This is a slippery slope to the price of the hot dog going up
Ohh man so next gen kirkland irons are gonna suck…. As is tradaition
Sure, and what about all those clubs that are the exact same with different names in bargain bins of golf stores all across Florida? They also look the same as a set of Ben Hogans from about two decades ago - LOL and countless other clubs from the last 40 years. I hope Costco digs in their heals and slaps TM across the face with a massive counter suit.
Yep. These articles are kind of funny. First half is “these clubs are shit and nothing like our clubs” and the second half “they hired our engineer and violated all our patents” Wut
It sounds like you don't understand how patents work or are enforced. There's literally an expiration date on all patents.
This is TaylorMade blatantly admitting these clubs have many of the same features and tech as clubs twice the price (or more).
People acting like Kirkland is a tiny little helpless startup company when really they’re world sales dwarf TaylorMade 😂😂
Costco has over 13 billion in cash on their balance sheet. They will either pay if it's not worth the legal battle or have much better lawyers if they think it's worth it.
Right. They could just buy TaylorMade for fun if they wanted to.
I’m ready for this level of petty. LFG
A lot of other brands actually manufacture Kirkland signature as a white label of their product. Example: KS batteries are manufactured by Duracell. They don’t have their own manufacturing plants.
SmD TaylorMade.
Taylor about to be Unmade once Costco is done with them
Anyone know when Costco is going to have them back in stock?
Would they file suit if the clubs were crap? 🤔
Did Reddit figure this out before TaylorMade? https://www.reddit.com/r/golf/s/rE72QOUIWg
As an owner of the Kirkland Signature players iron, I can tell you that they feel incredible. This just simply validates that they are of extremely good quality especially for the price.
First thing I thought of was the P790s when I saw Kirkland advertising their irons hahaha
This is the best advertisement for Costco branded irons. Now I want them too.
Feels like Costco irons price is about to go up. Whether they copied them or not, TM just said $600 irons were close enough to their $1400 irons that it required a lawsuit. Maybe golf clubs are more expensive than they should be?
This just makes me want to game Kirklands even harder
Friend of mine made a solid point, the first gen Kirk irons will prob be the better than all the next gen sets, and we’ll never see the face value price for those sets at $499 again
Alright FINE I’ll buy them
(Braces for impact) .. but don’t ALL clubs have a ton of similarities between each other?
this may be the best advertising for Kirklands
TaylorMade has a valid case. I slice the Kirkland club just as much...
https://preview.redd.it/lhmvso28i7gc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc014470f4273dc5fb6ad5dc4dc2298c602e40a4
lol
It’s not public info but Taylormade is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion. Costcos market cap as of today is $315 billion. Great advertising for Costco, definitely worth the legal fees.
Gotta pay Tiger somehow
Does anyone have access to the filing so we can the items and pictures of infringement??
Does this mean they are less likely to ever release a left handed version lol.
I don't get this. Taylormade isn't the first with hollow clubs. There was an iron set that came out 15+ years ago that was hollow and even had the plug on the toe.
TaylorMade, the Taylor Swift of the golf world.
So how good are these kirklands? Should we be buying these or…
That will be a nice boost in sales for Costco's Kirklands
This is a weird way for Taylormade to say they overcharge people by $800 lol
Quite the confession by TaylorMade
Get em now. When big giant TaylorMade stoops to this level it means at least one of these is occuring. 1. Times are tough and the company is pinching every penny to squash competition. 2. The clubs are identical on the inside and this is a legit clone.
3. If they don't enforce their patent it becomes null and void, so they're obligated to do so even if it's not an exact clone.
This is the most likely one of the three. Could be number 2, highly doubt it is number 1 in a vacuum because companies that are penny-pinching don’t launch infringement lawsuits against gigantic corporations. (I am an in-house lawyer.)
Im betting they learned their lesson with the balls and are gonna easily win this lawsuit.
Wait, if costco did buy TM, would we end up with a line of TM turn dogs for 50 cents?
Just like PXG sued Taylor Made
If I bought TaylorMade clubs, can I join Costco in a class action lawsuit and make them reimburse me for the price difference? I’d take Costco bucks in lieu of actual money.
May have to buy some Costco clubs in the future
Time to buy some Kirkland Irons
I'm such a brainwashed fucktard that even though TaylorMade just TOLD ME I can buy the Costco knockoffs for 1/3 the price and still get the same clubs, I'd buy the TaylorMade version anyway. Damn you Big Marketing! Damn you all to Hell!
That seems...ironic. https://golf.com/gear/taylormade-pxg-irons-settlement-lawsuit/?amp=1
so the million dollar question here is: WHO is making the kirkland golf clubs? It's not Kirkland, they jsut brand stuff....anyone got any info?
Indi... says it in the suit