ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,490,802, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to ASICS Corp. (Hyogo, Japan).
"Footwear" was invented by Yuka Matsuhisa (Kobe, Japan), Seiji Yano (Kobe, Japan), Kenji Hirata (Kobe, Japan) and Genki Hatano (Kobe, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Footwear includes a sole portion that supports a foot sole of a foot of a wearer, the sole portion including a ground contact surface and a shock absorbing portion formed of an elastic body. The shock absorbing portion includes a three-dimensional mesh structure portion in which a plurality of unit structures are repeatedly arranged so as to be adjacent to each other and an irregularly shaped portion ...