Opinion & Analysis

FlightScope Founder: “FlightScope was the first”

Published

13 years ago

May 13, 2013

There seems to be a lot of speculation these days as to who measured ball spin first, especially with the recent court ruling in Germany in favor of TrackMan’s lawsuit claiming a patent infringement against FlightScope. Over the next couple of months, research and fact finding will be the order of the day.

FlightScope was the first-ever 3D Doppler tracking radar for golf to measure spin directly using FM spectral traces created by the rotational velocity of the golf ball. This was publicly displayed on TV in 2004 during a golf charity event – Battle at the Bridges.

In the video you can see Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Hank Kuehne and John Daly battle it out. If you listen carefully to the commentators you can hear them talk about how FlightScope can actually indicate club speed, ball speed, maximum height, and backspin. This is a clear indication that FlightScope was the first to directly measure spin of a golf ball using Radar.

It is interesting to look back and see how far the game of golf has come in nine years and what a big part FlightScope technology played.

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Henri Johnson is a contributing writer for GolfWRX.com. His views do not necessarily represent the views of GolfWRX.

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Henri Johnson

Henri Johnson is the inventor of FlightScope, as well as the founder and president of Electronic Development House or EDH, the company behind FlightScope. He has won various awards for innovation, including the Minister's Award for overall technological innovation for Small Enterprise in 2005 in South Africa. He has also developed various high tech products including electrosurgical generators, automatic inspection systems for high speed production lines, Doppler Radar tracking systems for defense applications and 3D tracking radars for cricket, tennis, golf and baseball.

4 Comments

Rob

May 21, 2013 at 4:14 am

It is clear that FlightScope were the first, and it is clear that Trackman have sought to use the legal system to gain the upper hand in their competition with FlightScope. I bet that the people at Trackman knew full well that they themselves had not invented the notion of the radar signal being modulated by the ball spin. Or the fact that they could measure the spin by measuring the modulation. But they realized that FlightScope had not patented it, so they jumped in. Obviously the patent inspector at the European Patent Office did not do his work properly. Perhaps FlightScope did not patent it as it is such a well known phenomenon. I work in the Radar field, and the phenomenon of Radar signals being modulated by their targets was discovered way back in WW2, when modulation was observed from the spinning propellers of aircraft.

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Slim

May 16, 2013 at 3:10 pm

As a serial inventor, I would think Mr. Johnson would know how to protect his inventions. I live and work in San Francisco, near Silicon Valley, and work for a technology company. Patent disputes happen every day. We continuously ensure that our “Artwork” is dated and clear. (These are the notes and drawings that are created about an idea.) The artwork is often examined in court to determine who came up with an idea first. I’m not familiar with the German legal system, but Germany is a leading producer of highly sophisticated products. I’m sure their courts are capable of sorting out patent disputes correctly.

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mystic

May 14, 2013 at 12:54 pm

If company A tries to receive a patent and its rejected because its too general and then company B gets the patent somehow a few years later and sues Company A… sounds like a ridiculous runaround that will end up with nothing but confused public and unnecessary legal fees.

Henri should release some PHANTOM footage…

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ca1879

May 14, 2013 at 11:01 am

If your defense of your claim is that some golf commentators offered their opinion that your product did something, you are on shaky ground. Those guys wouldn’t know a doppler measurement from a double espresso. They were repeating whatever they’d been told about the product. I have no dog in this hunt, and I use and like both products, but if you do something first you need to document it properly or you’ll just be the “he said” guy.

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Opinion & Analysis

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