Categories of U.S. Patents

Barefootwear:  A series of footwear patents originally filed in 1988-1995 based on Frampton Ellis’ barefoot shoe sole technology described in the History of Barefoot Shoe Sole Design.  Licensed exclusively to adidas in 1994, barefootwear became adidas’ core footwear technology, called Feet You Wear, from 1996 to 2001

Footwear Controlled by Smartphone or Cloud: Configurable footwear sole structures such as bladders, compartments, chambers, or internal sipes that are controlled by a wearer’s smartphone and/or a web-based cloud computer system using input from sensors in the soles and the smartphone, as well as located on other parts of the sole wearer’s body. Without our knowledge or input, this technology was independently selected to be featured on YouTube as “Smart Shoe – Finally humanity invents the shoe that it deserves” that is included in the In the News section of this website.

Footwear Sole with Computer Controlled Compartments:  A series of footwear patents originally filed in 1998-2000 describing computer controlled sole compartments, chambers, or bladders located in any shoe soles, including the barefootwear designs above.

Footwear Sole with External Sipes:  A series of footwear patents and a patent application disclosing shoe soles incorporating slits or grooves (technically called sipes) that extend into the external surface of the bottom of the shoe sole and are used to provide enhanced sole flexibility.  First published internationally as World Intellectual Property Organization PCT applications in the 1991 and 1992, and then again in 1999 and 2000 as U.S. patents, the patents disclose the sipe sole technology used in Nike Free™ running shoes that were introduced in 2004 and since widely expanded into all other athletic footwear categories, as well as copied by many other footwear manufacturer/marketers.

Footwear Sole with Internal Sipes:  A series of patents originally filed in 2004-2007 disclosing internal flexibility sipes for use in footwear.  The external sipe technology is optimized to counteract shear forces rather than impact forces and much more closely mimics the function of parallel anatomic structures of the human body including the foot than does the external sipe technology described above.

Internal Sipes in Electronic, Electromechanical, and Other Devices:  A series of patents originally filed in 2004-2007 disclosing internal flexibility sipes for use in a wide and diverse variety of other articles, including electronic and/or electromechanical implants, flexible wire, and helmets, for example.