Oh, patents! Adidas Springblade™ shoes

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

For runners, sole cushioning is synonymous of running free of repetitive stress injury. And every running shoe manufacturer has their own patented system for cushioning the soles of their running shoe products, whether it is foam, encapsulated air, shock-absorbers like those of automobiles, or special toe and heel reinforcement pads.

The Adidas shoe designers have invented the Springblade™ to remedy some of the disadvantages of foam cushioning. They point out that the dynamic properties of foam are strongly weather-dependent, that is, foam hardens in cold weather, which is exactly the opposite of the desired cushioning effect. They also point out that foam wears out under repetitive compression and shearing loads, and every runner knows how to check the soles of their running shoes for signs of flattened and wrinkled foam. Finally, they also point out that the manufacture of foam soles cannot readily adapt to the weight of the user, or the shoe size, at reasonable cost, which results in both varying hardness of the soles and varying wear.  

The Springblade™ system, with its spring leaves engineered out of temperature independent and long life material, also adaptable to shoe size and easily manufactured, thus arises both as an alternative to foam and as remedy for its disadvantages.

Below, you will find the abstract of  patent US2011138652, titled Shoe and Sole with one of the patent drawings, and two images of the marketed product, the Adidas SpringBlade™ shoe. The blue shoe is the Men’s version and the Pink one is the Women’s version!...

Abstract US2011138652 - Shoe and Sole  The present invention relates to shoes, in particular a sports shoe. The shoe includes a sole plate having in a forefoot area a plurality of leaf spring elements, wherein the sole plate and the plurality of leaf spring elements are manufactured as a single piece. Each of the plurality of leaf spring elements has one free end not connected to the sole plate.