ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,420,473, issued on Sept. 23, was assigned to NIKE Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.).
"Tack and drag printing" was invented by Todd A. Waatti (Battleground, Wash.) and Yoav Sterman (Portland, Ore.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method and apparatus for bonding a yarn to a wearable article includes bonding the yarn to the wearable article at a first portion and a second portion. A first bonding location and a second bonding location are spaced apart from one another on a surface of the wearable article and an intermediate portion of the yarn extends contiguously between the first bonding location and the second bonding location and is not bonded t...