Near the bottom of a JOOLA Perseus page there is a short spec block. It is the first thing a product developer reads. Three of its four entries name a thing: a material, a pair of tests, a shape. The fourth gives a dimension, and the substance behind that dimension never appears.
Entry | What the page says |
Surface | Textured Carbon Fiber |
Core Thickness | 16mm |
Certification | UPA-A Pro + USAP PBCoR.43 |
Shape | Perseus |
The asymmetry sits in the first two rows. The surface is named by material, in words any factory can quote against. The core is named by a thickness. Later on the page it is named again, this time by a trademark. The FAQ asks how thick the core is. The answer reads 16mm Propulsion Core. Thickness and a name arrive together, while the material stays off the page.
The page’s own summary for search results makes the same point in one line. It lists a Propulsion Core, Textured Carbon Fiber surface, and 3S Dual technology. A trademark and a material sit side by side in a sentence of the same length. Nothing in that sentence marks which of the two a factory can quote against.
This matters beyond one product line. A spec line is the only part of a purchase that everyone reads from the same page. The brand, the factory and the test house all start there. When one line holds a trademark instead of a material, the words still match. The paddles built under those words stop matching each other.
The rest of this article shows what the name actually points to. It then covers how a trademark in a brief distorts quotes. It closes with the four fields that replace a name before an RFQ leaves your desk.
The page defines one of its names and not the other
The same page that leaves Propulsion Core undefined does define another term it uses. A section headed What is 3S Dual? explains the label. It means the paddle meets both UPA-A and USAP PBCoR.43 in one build. That is a claim a buyer can verify against two databases. The term has a referent, so it can be checked, priced and written into a contract clause.
Propulsion Core gets no equivalent treatment. It appears in the copy as an established fact, as though the reader already knows what it is. The whole evidence trail sits on the Perseus 3S Dual 16mm page. The spec block and the FAQ answer share one screen there, and neither of them carries a material.
The pattern repeats across the family. The Perseus POWER FX description calls the same name JOOLA's patented propulsion core. It then says the core is paired with EPP foam. That is the closest any page comes to naming a material for it. The Perseus CFS page takes a different route and never names a core at all. It says the CFS technology started on the Hyperion and now sits in the Perseus shape. The catalogue tag on that model reads gen-1.
One name therefore covers a core across several models. One page adds an EPP foam beside it, and no page says what the core itself is made of. That is not a mistake, and the next section explains what the name most likely stands for.
A patent is a real definition, just not one a buyer can read
Patented is the one word in that sentence a brand should take seriously, because a patent does describe a specific structure. A patented core can differ from a generic one in how it loads and returns energy. POWER FX makes that argument in plain language, comparing the core to a diving board that bends further and springs back. That is a mechanical description rather than a marketing flourish.
None of it reaches the buyer in a usable form. The patent number is missing from the page, and the claims stay unsummarised. A spec sheet cannot carry a patent claim in words a factory can quote against. A buyer therefore receives a name and nothing else, which could mean a patented beam or a moulded foam block. It could equally mean an edge-reinforced honeycomb or a standard core with a new label. Those four options carry different costs and produce different test numbers. Nothing on the page says which one you are looking at.
We should also say the obvious thing about our side of the table. We give our own constructions short names in quotes. A buyer reading our quote faces a smaller version of the same problem. A name is a convenience for the seller and a gap for the buyer. The gap closes only when somebody writes the material down. This article works from the buying side, because the seller has little reason to close it.
A name can point at a material, a shape or a test
Four kinds of name turn up on paddle spec sheets, and they behave differently once the document leaves marketing. The table below sorts them by what a buyer can do with each one.
Kind of name | Example from this family | What a buyer can do with it |
Material | Textured Carbon Fiber | Compare against other quotes, set an acceptance test |
Shape or process | 16mm core, extended core | Reproduce it, price the tooling it needs |
Test outcome | 3S Dual = UPA-A + USAP PBCoR.43 | Verify it in two databases, write it into a clause |
Unresolved trademark | Propulsion Core | Ask, and wait |
Three of those four survive translation into a purchase order. A material can be substituted and checked, a shape can be drawn and moulded, and a test outcome can be re-run. An unresolved trademark survives nothing, because there is nothing to compare it to.
Two suppliers can both claim to meet Propulsion Core equivalent while building different things. Neither of them is lying, because the phrase never had a single meaning. That is also why a trademark spreads so easily between brands. The name is short, it sounds like a component, and it costs nothing to reuse in a brief. Each reuse moves the conversation further from the material. A buyer ends up comparing adjectives across three quotes and calling it a comparison.
A trademark in a brief makes every quote different
The failure has an ordinary form: a brand writes an RFQ for a 16 mm paddle with a carbon face. The core in that RFQ is described as a propulsion-type construction. Three factories read the description against the cheapest construction that satisfies it. One quotes a polypropylene honeycomb at 80 g/L, and another quotes a lower-density honeycomb with a thicker wall. The third quotes a foam core, and the three numbers that come back differ by a wide margin. The cheapest bid then wins on an ambiguity rather than on efficiency.
The sample stage hides the difference rather than revealing it. All three samples will feel like a paddle to you, pass a hand test, and look correct in a photograph. The gap usually appears later, as a spin figure that drifts between batches. It can also appear as a deflection number on the wrong side of a limit at submission. By then the tooling is cut and the artwork is printed.
Certification adds a second layer to the same problem. Approval attaches to a model name and to the construction filed with it. A substitution made after the file is created turns a paperwork error into a compliance question. A brand that cannot state its core material in writing has no way to prove the match. The unit in the warehouse and the unit that was tested then rest on trust.
The four fields that replace a name
One habit prevents most of this, and it costs a paragraph in the brief. Every trade name in a purchase order should arrive with four fields beside it. You fill them in, and the supplier confirms or corrects them.
- Material family, in the words a supplier would use in a material certificate.
- Density or cell count, since two honeycombs of the same family behave differently at 60 and 90 g/L.
- Thickness and geometry, including whether the core is extended into the throat.
- Edge construction, because a foam ring and a bonded wall change how the assembly reads under load.
Those four fields are what the manufacturer that builds the honeycomb core quotes against. They are also what a test house needs in order to explain a result eighteen months later. A brief that carries them produces quotes that can be compared line by line rather than in total.
The second habit is a name registry, in which every marketing name sits in one row with its BOM lines. The row also carries the test reference that supports the name. That way the word means the same thing in 2027 as it did at launch. This is the same discipline that decides how one shape becomes fifteen listings without the list drifting out of control. The difference is that it applies to vocabulary rather than to SKUs.
What we do when a name arrives in a brief
When a brand sends a trademark with no material behind it, we ask rather than guess. The cheapest reading gets named in our reply, so the brand can see which one it is being offered. We send the four fields back with our assumption marked, and the brand either confirms it or corrects it. That exchange takes one email. It removes the largest single source of rework in a custom order, which is a specification that two sides read differently.
A name is not a bad thing to have. It gives a brand something to say in a market where every paddle is described with the same six words. The problem is that the name travels to the factory and the definition stays in the brochure.
Some brands want the name to survive into production. That work belongs to the manufacturer that turns a name into a BOM, and it starts with the definition. The definition has to exist before the sample is pressed, not after the first container ships.
Both documents are worth sending, including the part with the trademark on it. The row you had to guess at counts as well. The reply comes from the manufacturer that answers a spec question within 24 hours, and it starts with the material.
FAQ
What is a Propulsion Core on a JOOLA paddle?
It is a trade name JOOLA uses for the core across several Perseus and Hyperion models. The product pages do not state the material behind the name, and only the POWER FX description pairs it with a named foam. A buyer who needs the material has to ask for it in writing rather than read it off the spec block.
Is the Perseus CFS 16 a foam paddle?
JOOLA describes CFS as a technology that began on the Hyperion and now appears in the Perseus shape, and the catalogue tags the model gen-1. The page does not name a core material, so a claim about foam cannot be confirmed from the product page alone. The POWER FX page is the one in this family that uses the phrase full-foam.
Does a trade name change what the certification covers?
No. Approval attaches to a model name and to the construction filed with it. A trade name is not a construction, so renaming a core does not create a new file, while changing the material behind that name can put the model out of step with the file it was approved under.
Can a factory quote from a trademark?
Not in a way that can be compared. A factory will read the name against the cheapest construction that satisfies it, and three factories will read it three ways. The quote that comes back is valid only for the interpretation nobody wrote down.
What should replace a trade name in an RFQ?
Four fields: material family, density or cell count, thickness and geometry, and edge construction. Those four describe the core well enough for a supplier to quote and for a test house to explain a result later, and they leave the marketing name free to sit on the packaging where it belongs.
Does this apply to brands that write their own core names?
Yes, and it is the reason to write the definition at the same time as the name. A brand with a name and no material line hands its factory the same ambiguity it complains about when a competitor does the same thing.