Patents on the soles of your shoes...

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Terminology - WOTTIES 2025 - Collins Dictionary shortlisted Words of the Year

Terms shortlisted for the Collins Word of the Year (WOTY) are no less interesting mirrors of a year’s worth of trends and events. Collins posted the following nine 2025 Words of the Year, competing with “vibe coding”, the one term that was selected as the 2025 Word of the Year. A list of nine terms, each including a copyrighted Harper Collins definition, as well as a supporting still image, and/or GIF animation.

aura farming: The deliberate cultivation of a distinctive and charismatic persona.

biohacking: The activity of altering the natural processes of one's body in an attempt to improve one's health and longevity.

broligarchy: A small clique of very wealthy men who exert political influence.

clanker: A derogatory term for a computer, robot, or source of artificial intelligence.

GIF animation file unavailable for "clanker".

Visit https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

coolcation: A holiday in a place of cool climate.

glaze: To praise or flatter (someone) excessively or undeservedly.

HENRY (acronym for High Earner, Not Rich Yet): A person who has not accrued substantial wealth from their high income due to their lifestyle or external financial demands.

micro-retirement: A break taken between periods of employment in order to pursue personal interests.

GIF animation file unavailable for "micro-retirement".

Visit https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

task-masking: The act of giving a false impression that one is being productive in the workplace.

References
Quinn, R. (Nov. 6, 2025). Collins’ Word of the Year 2025: AI meets authenticity as society shifts. Collins Love of Language Blog.
https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-word-of-the-year-2025-ai-meets-authenticity-as-society-shifts/#google_vignette
Collins Word of the Year (WOTY)
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Terminology – WOTTIES 2025 – Collins Dictionary “vibe coding” Word of the Year

Each year, the major English language dictionaries publish The Words of the Year (WOTY, plural WOTTIES). A list of terms, and the winner of them all, are selected by a committee of terminologists, often backed by the number of times the term(s) were searched online, and/or crowdsourced votes.

Collins Dictionary selected “vibe coding” as the 2025 Word of the Year winner. A term first used on the social media platform X, on February 2, 2025, by Andrej Karpathy, former Director of AI at Tesla and founding engineer at OpenAI. In the X post, Karpathy described how easy it was to use AI-assisted programming tools, such as Cursor Composer and Claude Sonnet, designed to code and debug upon natural language prompting. He described how the tools were currently so good at executing his prompts that he could “give in to the vibes” (go with the flow) of coding, while “just forgetting that the code even exists”. In other words, he could use AI tools to do the computer programming, without writing and reading the unfolding code, or even attempting to debug it. A new jouissance, indeed!

By implication, according to Cress (2025) at the BBC, even if Karpathy's post on vibe coding addressed insiders, his X post also suggested that anyone could at least program a simple app, without any prior coding knowledge. All the user would have to do is request the program's features and functions. The example Karpathy provided for a weekend website construction project was that he could just ask the AI tool to "decrease the padding on the sidebar by half ", without even having to find the code that would execute such a change to the website's functional appearance.

In turn, Collins defined the term “vibe coding” as "the use of artificial intelligence prompted by natural language to assist with the writing of computer code.” To illustrate the Dictionary's winning 2025 Word of the Year, Collins also posted the below animated GIF.

References

Collins Dictionary (online)

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

Cress, L. (Nov. 5, 2025) 'Vibe coding' named word of the year by Collins Dictionary.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2y053nleo

Quinn, R. (Nov. 6, 2025). Collins’ Word of the Year 2025: AI meets authenticity as society shifts. Collins Love of Language Blog.
https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-word-of-the-year-2025-ai-meets-authenticity-as-society-shifts/#google_vignette

Karpathy, A. (2025) Post on “X”.
https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383?lang=en

Sunday, November 30, 2025

Oh, patents! Louis Vuitton soles

During his brief tenure as Creative Director for menswear at the 170-year-old Louis Vuitton (LV) luxury fashion House, Virgil Abloh* had time to introduce skate-style sneakers into the prestigious line of LV shoes. The chunky sneaker, street-skate style, was re-created and expertly tweaked into an iconic LV sneaker. A sneaker that became a permanent staple of the luxury LV product line. Luxury, because each pair of LV sneakers is hand-crafted at the Manufacture de Souliers Louis Vuitton (manufacturing and design center for LV shoes), in Fiesso d'Artico, close to Venice, Italy. A shoe manufacturing process that takes approximately seven hours to complete for each pair.

Skate-style, as in “skateboard-style”, the board that was originally designed, in the 50s and 60s, for surfers to keep fit and agile on land, during periods when there are no waves to ride in the ocean. A twenty-first-century style that had already transitioned over several decades, from the niche-sport surf-style into a global street-style phenomenon, complete with organized skate competitions, skate music, skate fashion, and insider skate talk (Thimo, 2024). A style that Virgil Abloh had already pioneered in the United States with his own luxury streetwear brand called Off-White™.

The LV street-style sneakers have a patented sole. The US design patent, USD1033004, titled Sole for footwear, was awarded on July 2nd, 2024, to Mathias Patillon and Alexander Kelvy. The patent was then assigned to the original legendary (1854) trunk-making company Louis Vuitton Malletier (FR).

Below, the patent Figure depicting the patented sole design, from the bottom-up, together with LV Skate and LV Trainer sneakers models, both manufactured with the patented sole design.

-----

Note

* Virgil Abloh, the first black-American Creative Director for Louis Vuitton menswear, from 2018 till his premature death at the age of 41, in 2021.

References

Louis Vuitton (website)

https://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/

Louis Vuitton: A legendary history.

https://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/magazine/articles/a-legendary-history

Manufacture de souliers Louis Vuitton

https://wwd.com/footwear-news/shoe-features/gallery/louis-vuitton-italian-footwear-factory-photos-1238026158/

Off-White™

https://www.off---white.com/

Thimo (March 31, 2024). The evolution and enduring popularity of skate style. Sneaker Jagers.

https://tinyurl.com/bdzx5fsu

Sunday, November 9, 2025

Oh, patents! Manolo Blahnik Borla evening clutch (6)

The Manolo Blahnik Borla evening clutch was also inspired by the Monolo Blahnik Borlak pumps. A bigger and more striking Borlak pump buckle adorns the front of the Blahnik evening clutch.

The Manolo Blahnik Borla evening clutch is a patented design. On March 7th, 2017, the US design patent, USD780443S1, titled Handbag was awarded to Manolo Blahnik.

Below, the patent Figure 1, depicting a front-right perspective view of the Borla evening clutch, together with an image of the marketed product. The Manolo Blahnik Borla clutch shown is satin-clad with a Swarovski crystal ornament fully covering the front of the clutch.

References
Manolo Blahnik (website)
https://www.manoloblahnik.com/us/
Pithers, E. (Aug. 5, 2015). Manolo Blahnik on misanthropy, minaudières and the "divine" Mary Beard. Daily Telegraph.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/manolo-blahnik-launches-new-bag-collection-stays-independent/

Oh, patents - Manolo Blahnik Mina clutch

One more patented Manolo Blahnik evening clutch—the Mina clutch. Un-inspired by previous pump collections, the Mina clutch was designed separately from the six released for the Fall of 2015. The Mina clutch is a silver-toned minaudiere* with large royal blue polka dots, and a magnetic clasp closure.

The Manolo Blahnik Mina clutch is patented. The US design patent USD781052S1, titled Handbag, was awarded to Manolo Blahnik on March 14th, 2017.

Below, the patent Figure 1, depicting a front-right perspective view of the Mina clutch, together with a marketed embodiment of the design.

Note

A minaudière is a small hard-shell evening clutch, made popular by the luxury jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels, in 1934.

Reference

Manolo Blahnik (website)
https://www.manoloblahnik.com/us/

Friday, November 7, 2025

Manolo Blahnik - Manolo Blahnik Lakka evening clutch (5)

The rectangular Manolo Blahnik Lakka evening clutch was inspired by the satin-clad Manolo Blahnik Borlak pumps. Manolo Borlak pumps are embellished with a jeweled buckle. The Manolo Blahnik jeweled Borlak pump buckle adorns the rectangular front of the satin Manolo Blahnik Lakka evening clutch.

The Manolo Blahnik Lakka evening clutch is a patented design. The US design patent, USD780445S1, titled Handbag, was awarded on March 7th, 2017, to Manolo Blahnik.

Below, the patent Figure 1, depicting a front-right perspective view of the invention design, together with two images of the marketed Lakka evening clutch. The two satin-clad, Lakka evening clutches, respectively in black and nude, both have a Swarovski crystal front decoration, inspired by the Borlak Monolo Blahnik pump buckle.

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Oh, patents! Manolo Blahnik Kana evening clutch (4)

The square Manolo Blahnik Kana evening clutch was also inspired by the Manolo Blahnik Okkato pumps. Okkato Manolos are satin pumps with a jeweled buckle. The Okkato buckle ornament is designed on the front of the Kana minaudière*.

The Manolo Blahnik Kana evening clutch was granted the US design patent, USD781053S1, on March 14th, 2017. The patent was awarded to Manolo Blahnik.

Below, the patent Figure 1, depicting a front-right view of the invention design, together with three images of the marketed Manolo Blahnik Kana evening minaudière, satin-clad with Swarovski crystal decoration .

-------

Note

A minaudière is a small hard-shell evening clutch, made popular by the luxury jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels, in 1934.

References
Manolo Blahnik (website)
https://www.manoloblahnik.com/us/

Pithers, E. (Aug. 5, 2015). Manolo Blahnik on misanthropy, minaudières and the "divine" Mary Beard. Daily Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/manolo-blahnik-launches-new-bag-collection-stays-independent/