Sunday, September 4, 2022

Oh, patents! TIEKS™ (1)

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Wear’m, fold’m, and stow’m in your purse, TIEKS™ ballerina flats are not only versatile little shoes, they are engineered for comfort. In fact, they are the shoes that Oprah would wear, if she walked to work (Desmarais, 2022). With a patented split sole, the color of Robin’s egg blue, reminiscent of Tiffany’s trademark blue, these ballet flats are indeed jewels on your feet, on more counts than one.

The split sole enables each ballet flat to fold (see image below), so that a pair might fit into a small pouch, easily stowed in a purse. As a result, each pair of  TIEKS™  comes with a small pouch, and a larger tote designed to accommodate (and carry) the other pair of shoes you use, after or before you switch, to or from your  TIEKS™ . In other words, no more switching to bulky sports shoes to hit the asphalt after work, 9 to 5 in the financial district.  TIEKS™ could even fit in your pocket, for every time you needed to switch, and bounce into the comfort of these little ballet flats.

 TIEKS™  are quite extensively patented shoes. The following US design patents cover just the ornamental aspects of the split sole ballet shoe, comprising two blue outsole patches, on every pair of some 60 different models.

As a reminder, a US design patent covers the way an invention looks, in contrast to the ways an invention works, or is manufactured. The way an invention works, or is manufactured, is covered in US utility patents. For  TIEKS™, this would be the way the invention is engineered for comfort, in contrast to the design patents listed above, that cover just their design, or the way they look.  

Below, the cover sheet drawing extracted from the US design patent USD668847S depicts top and bottom views of the patented ornamental design of the TIEKS™ split sole shoe.

 

The short  TIEKS™ Youtube video below depicts  TIEKS™ styles, in some of the 60 different color-material combinations available.


References

TIEKS™ (website)
www.tieks.com

Desmarais, C. (Aug. 16, 2022). The shoes that Oprah would wear to work (if she had to walk).
https://www.inc.com/30under30/christina-desmarais/kfir-gavrieli-and-elram-gavrieli-founders-of-tieks.html


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