FAIRHAVEN – Acushnet Co., the golf business of Fortune Brands Inc. (NYSE: FO), is asking retailers to exchange any “nonconverted” Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls that remain on their shelves after tomorrow.

The voluntary recall is related to the company’s ongoing legal dispute with Carlsbad, Calif.-based Callaway Golf Co. (NYSE: ELY), which claims that Acushnet’s Pro V1 balls violated Callaway patents for multilayer golf-ball technology. “Callaway Golf believes it is time for Acushnet to accept its losses in court,” Steve McCracken, the company’s senior executive vice president and administrative officer, said in a statement last week.

Acushnet, however, contends that the Callaway patents are not valid. “Spalding received four patents in 2001 and 2003, well after the Pro V1 was developed and introduced,” the Fairhaven company notes in an online statement about the dispute. “Callaway acquired these patents when they purchased Spalding in 2003.

“We believe these patents are invalid and should never have been issued in the first place. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agrees with Acushnet. It has reexamined the patents and issued final actions that all four of these patents are invalid and should never have been issued.

“Callaway filed suit in 2006, claiming that our Pro V1 golf balls infringe these four patents. In 2007, a jury found partially in favor of Callaway and partially in favor of Acushnet.

“We disagree with the trial court’s ruling, especially as the court did not permit the jury to consider very important evidence, including the fact that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued actions that all four patents are invalid. … We have appealed this case to the federal Circuit Court of Appeals, who will consider this important evidence.”

That case is expected to be heard in 2009.

Meanwhile, however, a lower-court injunction that takes effect Jan. 1 will bar the sale of Titleist golf balls manufactured using the contested technology. (The balls will remain legal for consumer use and tournament play, Acushnet noted.)

So this fall – while also launching a bid to block the injunction, an effort that failed last week (READ MORE) – Acushnet stopped using the disputed technology. Last month, it began shipping to retailers the “converted” Pro V1 and Pro V1x models. And last week, Acushnet said it would accept returns from retailers of any remaining nonconverted balls, although it did not believe any recall was necessary.

But now, Acushnet has decided to play it safe.

In what it described as an effort “to remove this uncertainty from the marketplace,” the company this week issued a call for U.S. retailers to return to the company all nonconverted Pro V1 and Pro V1x balls that remain in their inventories as of Jan. 1.

Details of the product-exchange program have been communicated directly to retailers and posted online at www.titleist.com, the company said.

Acushnet stressed that, “While a number of changes in the manufacturing process were required to address the patent issues, performance and quality [of the new balls] are indistinguishable from the current products.” The company added that “Titleist Pro V1 golf balls have always conformed to USGA Rules, and these products are no exception,” and noted that the “converted products” also have been Tour validated.

The converted models are to be replaced early next year with a new version of the Pro V1, the company noted.

“As Titleist has always done throughout its 75-year history, we introduce new and improved golf balls when we have a better-performing product,” Acushnet said. “We introduced new Pro V1 products in 2003, 2005, 2007 and will introduce new products in 2009. The New 2009 Pro V1 models will perform differently from and better than the current Pro V1 models.” Feedback from Tour players who tested the balls this fall “has been extremely favorable,” the company added.

Unlike the “converted” Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls – which are distinguished by a black or red circular sticker or marking on every box or sleeve – “the new 2009 models will feature different sidestamps and packaging and appear as different listings on the USGA Conforming Ball List,” Acushnet said.

Acushnet Co. – a maker of golf equipment and apparel under brands including Titleist, Cobra, FootJoy and Pinnacle – is a unit of Deerfield, Ill.-based consumer brands company Fortune Brands Inc. (NYSE: FO), whose businesses also include manufactures and marketers of distilled spirits and home and hardware products. For more information, go to www.FortuneBrands.com or www.AcushnetCompany.com.