“Personal Golfing Assistant and Method and System for Graphically Displaying Golf Related Information and For Collection, Processing and Distribution of Golf Related Data.” Wow, what a mouth full. A patent application with this title was recently published as US Publication No. 20070087866. The application is 78 pages!

The application describes the invention as:

A personal golfing assistant system is comprised of software running on a PDA attached directly or remotely to a GPS receiver that enables the user to survey and/or electronically capture geophysical golf data. A handheld device connected to or integrated with a GPS receiver can instead be used. Software allows a golfer to use a handheld PDA/GPS unit during the course of play to mark a ball location automatically and/or determine the distance to golf course targets and/or objects, and to analyze golf related data and generate statistics. The system can send a set of parameters tailored for a specific course to a real time tunable GPS to adjust for optimal performance and can adjust measurements to compensate for environmental condition changes. The system provides an improved graphical method for measuring and displaying distances between a golfer and a golf course object, for displaying multiple measured distances along a line of sight between a golfer and a golf object or target, and for orienting a target or object on a display to coincide with a user's line of sight. There is also provided a method for collecting and uploading golf course geographic information services (GIS) data to an internet accessible server, processing the uploaded data, distributing data upon an authorized user request, and downloading the requested data to an electronic device.

This little device is supposed to do everything. A quick check of the assignment records does not indicate if the patent application is assigned to a golf equipment company.

I hope the inventors at least recoup their investment in the patent application (which could easily be over $15k for an application of this length). There is no doubt that this would be a great product if it could be reasonably priced.

David Dawsey – The IP Golf Guy