US Patent Issued to adidas on April 8 for "Articles of footwear and apparel having a partially fused fabric portion and methods of making the same" (American, Chinese, German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,269,231, issued on April 8, was assigned to adidas AG (Herzogenaurach, Germany).

"Articles of footwear and apparel having a partially fused fabric portion and methods of making the same" was invented by Robert Leimer (Portland, Ore.), Warren Freeman (Guangzhou, China), Angus Wardlaw (Nurmberg, Germany), Nicholas Groeneweg (Portland, Ore.) and Henry Ling (Portland, Ore.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An article of footwear can include an upper. The upper includes a knitted portion having yarns partially fused to adjacent yarns and filaments of the partially fused yarns that are partially fused to adjacent filaments. Methods for manufactur...