As discussed in a previous insight, the smart basketball market is pretty crowded at the moment, with three companies, ShotTracker, Wilson, and Sstatzz Oy, taking up a significant amount of the market. Of the three companies, ShotTracker seems to be performing the best here in the US and, according to a recent company announcement, is looking to expand. The DDSports-owned basketball behemoth just announced its intentions to expand outward away from the sport that it is known for, looking towards other ball-based sports to find new ways to load their players and equipment with sensors. Specifically, the company is showing interest in entering the football market to hopefully end the age-old complaint of how long it takes for a referee to review a touchdown. Also, the company is looking towards possible applications in the emerging, but destined to be massive, gambling market associated with sports.

While the company just seems to be in testing mode now, one thing it can’t forget is IP. While goodwill traditionally goes a long way in sports markets, protecting your tech is crucial when dealing with such pivotal inventions. Currently, the company has a few patent assets that look to be non-exclusive to basketball, but none that go into much detail of embodiments related to football. That being said, there’s still time to patent as it hasn’t released much information on the product in development, but hasn’t filed for an application since December of 2018. With this low patent activity, ShotTracker better turn its attitude towards patents around fast if it wants to be protected.