Pickleball has always been a sport defined by rapid innovation. In just a few short years, paddle technology has evolved from simple composite faces to sophisticated engineered cores designed to squeeze every last ounce of power from a player’s swing. But innovation, it turns out, has a price and JOOLA has decided it’s time to collect.
On April 7, 2026, JOOLA filed patent infringement litigation with the International Trade Commission (ITC) against 11 paddle brands for the unauthorized use of its proprietary Propulsion Core technology. The move sent shockwaves through the pickleball community and has implications that reach from weekend warriors to the sport’s top professionals.
What Is the Propulsion Core?
To understand what’s at stake, you first need to understand what JOOLA is claiming to own.
JOOLA is credited with creating the “Gen 3” category of pickleball paddles, featuring an EVA foam perimeter around a polypropylene honeycomb core, a new innovation that led to a noticeable increase in power. But the specific technology at the center of this lawsuit is more precise than the broader “Gen 3” design.
The Propulsion Core adds a specific type of flex to the interior of the paddle, creating a responsive, spring-like effect on contact letting players generate more pace on drives, counters, and speed-ups without swinging harder. The design is often described as a foam horseshoe or diving board shape. Critically, it does not extend all the way around the paddle’s perimeter just the top half or so.
JOOLA spent years investing in the research, development, and rigorous testing behind this technology, which is protected through a portfolio of patents and has become the standard in competitive pickleball.
Who Is Being Sued?
The list of defendants reads like a who’s who of the paddle industry. The defendants include Franklin Sports, Proton Sports, RPM Pickleball, Engage Pickleball, Friday Labs, Diadem Sports, Facolos, ProXR Pickleball, Paddletek, Adidas Pickleball, and Volair.
That’s a remarkably wide net spanning legacy manufacturers, newer upstarts, and even a major global sports brand in Adidas. The lawsuit appears to apply specifically to paddles featuring the “U”-shaped perimeter foam. Paddles where the foam runs all the way around the core like the Selkirk Era Power are not included in the lawsuit.
JOOLA’s Argument: Protect Innovation, Not Market Share
JOOLA has been careful to frame this lawsuit as a matter of principle rather than competitive self-interest.
“This is a principled decision, not a reactive one,” said Richard Lee, CEO of JOOLA. “We take our responsibility to defend what we’ve built seriously. Our goal is to protect our innovation and encourage others to innovate as well.” The Dink
The company was even more direct in its official statement.
“Protecting our innovation is not about limiting what others can do it’s about ensuring the investment, creativity and engineering required to advance this sport are rewarded,” JOOLA Lee said.
The implication is clear: if companies can copy winning technology without consequence, the incentive to innovate disappears entirely.
JOOLA added that when innovations are imitated without authorization, it
“undermines the integrity of competition and ultimately slows the sport’s progress.”
The Bigger Context: JOOLA Has Been Here Before
This patent filing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. JOOLA has been at the center of pickleball’s legal battles for years now.
In 2024, JOOLA filed a lawsuit against USA Pickleball, asserting that the governing body had de-listed its Gen 3 paddles without following its own guidelines, specifically by not honoring a 180-day “sunsetting period” that allows manufacturers to continue selling approved paddles before they are removed from the list.
That dispute grew contentious. USA Pickleball filed a countersuit, alleging that the paddles available for public purchase contained two to three times more foam around the edges than the prototypes originally submitted for approval.
Separately, Sport Squad (JOOLA’s parent company) agreed to settle two class action lawsuits claiming the company had falsely advertised that its Gen 3 paddles were approved by USA Pickleball ClassAction.org, though the company denied any wrongdoing.
The current ITC filing marks a new and more aggressive chapter: rather than playing defense, JOOLA is now taking the fight directly to its competitors.
What Happens Next?
The International Trade Commission is a powerful venue for this kind of complaint. ITC cases can result in import bans on infringing products, which would be devastating for any paddle manufacturer relying on overseas production, which is essentially the entire industry.
For consumers, the lawsuit raises real questions about the future availability of some of the most popular paddles on the market. If JOOLA prevails, brands could be forced to redesign their paddle cores from scratch, leading to product discontinuations and potential supply shortages.
For the broader sport, the case may force a reckoning about how quickly the pickleball industry, which has largely operated in a freewheeling, fast-moving mode, will need to mature into one that takes intellectual property seriously.
JOOLA has encouraged every brand to “bring their own ideas, their own engineering, and their own creativity”
a message that sounds collaborative on the surface, but in the context of a lawsuit against 11 companies, lands more like a warning shot.
The pickleball paddle industry will never look quite the same again.
This story is developing. Responses from the named defendants are expected in the coming weeks as the ITC process gets underway.
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