Patent searches commissioned by Cool Game Designs prior to manufacturing Barsportz Dartboard Golf uncovered a remarkablearray of previous attempts to design a dartboard golf game.
These designs start with the very simple, such as US Patent 5642886 filed by Arthur Yancey, which is basically golf played on a conventional dartboard. It still sounds complicated though when you read the description below:
At the other end of the scale is the invention of Howard Hanson, US Patent 5197743, which features a very impressive and detailed design of a golf course. What is more impressive is the accompanying mechanical workings which were to be concealed behind the board thereby enabling sand and water to be expelled from the board through purpose built holes.
This would occur when a dart landed in a depicted bunker or water trap. Howard even allowed for a drain hole in the bottom of the dartboard cabinet to drain out the squirted water.
(See Figure 9, Item 36)
The text from the Patent explaining the mechanism makes it abundantly clear!! Read on:
Bloody hell, it’s just a dartboard!
Back to another simple design, this time Patent 364 932 filed in Great Britain way back in 1931 by Harrison Requa Johnston of the US. The picture says it all, no need for rambling gobbeldy gook!
William George Cooper, also filing in Great Britain, wanted to kill two birds with one stone as it were by patenting dartboard golf and dartboard billiards/snooker. Again the diagram will give you an indication of his intentions.
In 1969, US citizen John F Dooley got caught up in the trailblazing technological exploits of his country’s space agency and subsequently came up with his take on a dartboard golf game. Below is an abstract taken from the patent briefly explaining the playing process. (If I thought you had more time, say a couple of weeks, I could have included the whole body of the patent!)
Here are some diagrams to help you understand where John was coming from.
Out of this world, John!
Another John, John Gary from Los Angeles, as recently as 1999 just decided to redesign the normal dartboard into eighteen wedges instead of twenty. Simple, are you listening, John Dooley? Evolution in reverse!
This brings me to the granddaddy of them all, patented by two of my fellow countrymen. Again it just sounds way too complicated.
I’m not sure how big this board is supposed to be but it’s fair to say it won’t fit in your standard dartboard cabinet, maybe not even on your standard games room wall!
