US Patent Issued to NIKE on June 16 for "Article of footwear with integrally knit tongue" (American, Chinese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,653,275, issued on June 16, was assigned to NIKE Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.).

"Article of footwear with integrally knit tongue" was invented by Torrey J. Bell (Portland, Ore.), Zhu Feixiang (Ningbo City, China) and Casey Pierson (Portland, Ore.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A knitted component for an article of footwear comprises a knit element and a tongue integrally knitted with the knit element. The knit element includes a lateral throat portion overlapping a lateral edge of the tongue and a medial throat portion overlapping a medial edge of the tongue. The lateral throat portion and the tongue are joined by a first knit structure, and th...