HEM.TO Update: Four New Patents for Hemisphere GPS

See this press release ("Hemisphere GPS Awarded Four New Patents for Positioning and Automated Steering") for the Physics 903.

Hemisphere GPS (HEM.TO) is one of three positions I currently have that are Aaron Edelheit picks. Again, it's worth signing up for guest access to the Value Investors Club to read Edelheit's initial write-up, under his pseudonym "Issambres839". Hemisphere is also a holding of Daniel Wahl and Ravinsu (who doesn't have a blog yet, as far as I know, but occasionally graces us with his comments here). I've mentioned Hemisphere here before a few times, but I don't think I've explained what the company's business is. Here is a layman's description, in a nutshell:

If you've ever mowed a lawn or spread fertilizer or seeds on a lawn, you've probably overlapped your rows slightly, to make sure you covered the whole area of your lawn. Commercial farmers have long done essentially the same thing. When a commercial farmer is working with tens of thousands of acres, all that overlap can lead to the waste of a lot of (increasingly expensive) fuel, fertilizer, and seeds. Hemisphere is a "precision agriculture" company. By using satellite guidance systems, Hemisphere's equipment precisely steers tractors and other agricultural equipment, obviating the need for overlap, and saving farmers a lot fuel, fertilizer, and seeds -- and, consequently, a lot of money.

In a sense, Hemisphere GPS is to the agriculture industry what Alloy Steel International is to the mining industry. Both companies' products enable operators in their respective industries to operate more efficiently.