US Patent Issued to NIKE on Dec. 16 for "Bladders, footwear uppers including bladders, and articles of footwear including bladders in the upper" (Oregon Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,495,867, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to NIKE Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.).

"Bladders, footwear uppers including bladders, and articles of footwear including bladders in the upper" was invented by Patrick R. Case (Portland, Ore.), Yoon Jeong Choi (Portland, Ore.), James Molyneux (Portland, Ore.), Colin Runkle (Portland, Ore.) and Bryan K. Youngs (Beaverton, Ore.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Footwear uppers include a footwear upper base formed from one or more component parts and including: (i) an instep region including at least one of a tongue base region or instep base region and (ii) a heel-containing region. A bladder is engaged with ...