US Patent Issued to NIKE on July 28 for "Automatic pump for article of footwear" (Oregon, California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,690,644, issued on July 28, was assigned to NIKE Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.).

"Automatic pump for article of footwear" was invented by Jennifer L. Bishop (Portland, Ore.), Timothy P. Hopkins (Tustin, Calif.), Nicholas R. Long (Portland, Ore.), Nadia M. Panian (Beaverton, Ore.), Aaron K. Seid (Portland, Ore.) and Richard Kristian Hansen (Portland, Ore.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An article of footwear includes an upper including a chamber, a compressible component disposed within the chamber and operable between a relaxed state and a constricted state, a sole structure including a recess forming a cavity, and a pump device disposed within ...