US Patent Issued to NIKE on July 21 for "Footwear sole structure" (Oregon Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,685,367, issued on July 21, was assigned to NIKE Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.).

"Footwear sole structure" was invented by Marcos Bonfiglioli (Portland, Ore.), John Cross (Portland, Ore.), Ryan R. Larson (Portland, Ore.) and Shamees Mohamed (Portland, Ore.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sole structure for a footwear article includes a system of support structures that are arranged in a subunit. In some examples, the subunit can be at least partially enclosed by an exoskeleton. In some instances, the system of support structures can comprise at least a portion of a cartridge that can connect to another component in the sole structure. The cartr...