US Patent Issued to NIKE on June 16 for "Article of footwear for soccer" (Oregon, Washington Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,653,273, issued on June 16, was assigned to NIKE INC. (Beaverton, Ore.).

"Article of footwear for soccer" was invented by John Droege (Portland, Ore.), Paul Hooper (Vancouver, Wash.), Tetsuya T. Minami (Portland, Ore.) and Morgan Stauffer (Portland, Ore.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An article of footwear has a sole including a toe portion and a heel portion, a toe bumper disposed on the toe portion, the toe bumper being configured to contact a ball, and a heel bumper disposed on the heel portion, the heel bumper being configured to contact the ball, wherein at least one of the toe bumper and the heel bumper has an asymmetric shape." ...