Patent Application
20220211140
Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to customizing footwear, such as articles of footwear, and systems and methods related thereto.
Articles of footwear conventionally include components such as a sole, including a midsole and outsole, an upper, and a heel counter. Such components may utilize colored fabrics, leather, or other materials, and may include embellishing designs, such as logos and the like. Conventionally, such articles of footwear are made to factory specification and sold to consumers.
Aspects of the presently disclosed technology relate to kits, systems, and methods for customizing articles of footwear. The kits, systems, and methods may be applied as a modular attachment system to an article of footwear that does not include such components as native components of the article of footwear. The kit and system may include various customizable components, including light emitting devices such as display screens and other decorative and customizable elements which may be incorporated into, attached, or otherwise secured onto an article of footwear.
In an example, the system is a modular attachment system or kit which includes an outsole platform, a lighting unit, and an adjustable heel unit. The adjustable heel unit may include a power source, such as a battery, which may provide power to other components of the kit or system. The adjustable heel unit may further be configured to be physically adjusted relative to the article of footwear, e.g., by rotating or extending/retracting. The physical adjustment may be achieved with a motor.
The system may include attachment devices, such as straps configured to wrap around an article of footwear. The attachment devices may facilitate the provision of electrical power between and among the components of the kit or system. The straps may have hole and hook and loop fastener elements to facilitate attachment of the various decorative elements. Such a modular attachment system may attach to an article of footwear using a strap on mechanism, buckles, magnetic mechanisms, and/or the like.
The decorative elements of the system may include, without limitation, trinkets, customized shaped parts, light emitting devices, such as electronic display screen or discrete lights, and so forth. Such light emitting devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,769,836, ARTICLE OF FOOTWEAR WITH COLOR CHANGE PORTION AND METHOD OF CHANGING COLOR, Donovan et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 9,301,569, ARTICLE OF FOOTWEAR WITH COLOR CHANGE PORTION AND METHOD OF CHANGING COLOR, Donovan et al., both of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. The parts may include color, graphics, textures, etc. that may be customized. The screens may be screens in communication with a computing device over a data connection, including wired or wireless connections (e.g., Bluetooth®, WiFi, etc.) for receiving customizable content, including graphics, animation, and/or the like, for display with the screens.
The system may further include a power source, such as a battery, to power the light emitting devices and other electronics. The battery may be rechargeable using kinetic charging through activities such as walking, running or other movement of the user wearing the articles of footwear and the modular attachment system. The screens may be LCD, LED, OLED, and/or the like. The computing device may be used to control the customizable content on the screens using an article of footwear customizer. For example, a user may control color, hues, images, videos, graphics, animation, and/or other content using the article of footwear customizer. In one implementation, the system utilizes beaming technology through a dedicated app in the form of the article of footwear customers or a native Bluetooth®, such as AirDrop@ from the computing device. The screens may include and/or be in communication with a communication link, such as a Bluetooth® chip, for communication with the computing device. The modular attachment system may be an article of footwear sole attachment designed of elements combined and including a sole, a battery, and one or more screens allowing the user to display customizable content in real time.
The outsole platform 102 may include a sole cage 110 configured to wrap around the article of footwear. The sole cage may be formed of rubber, leather, or any other suitable material or combination of materials. The outsole platform 102 may include a size extension (e.g., stretch rubber or click extension) to allow the outsole platform 102 to adapt to a variety of sizes and shapes of article of footwear. Moreover, the outsole platform 102 may utilize a motor, as disclosed and/or incorporated by reference herein, to perform the size extension and/or control the fit of the outsole platform 102 relative to the article of footwear.
The lighting unit 104 is configured to be positioned on and around an upper of the article of footwear and includes a separate decorative attachment, such a light emitting device 112, such as an electronic display screen or other light source. It is to be recognized and understood that while the lighting unit 104 is described as including the light emitting device 112, any of the other components of the article of footwear customization kit 100 may additionally include a light emitting device 112, including the outsole platform 102 and/or adjustable heel unit 106.
The components 102, 104, 106 of the article of footwear customization kit 100 may be attached or otherwise secured to the article of footwear using one or more attachment device 114 that may be but are not necessarily related to the attachment devices 108, e.g., a hook, button, etc. Moreover, the adjustable heel unit 106 may include an automatic adjustment system to secure the adjustable heel unit 106 to the article of footwear and/or prevent interference with a body part, e.g., a heel, Achilles, or calf, of a wearer of the article of footwear. Moreover, the one or more of the components 102, 104, 106 specifically and/or the article of footwear customization kit 100 generally may utilize a motorized system to attach and/or secure the article of footwear customization kit 100 to the article of footwear, e.g., as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,961,963, “LACING ENGINE FOR AUTOMATED FOOTWEAR PLATFORM”, Schneider et al., which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Moreover, the skins or other displays may be based in whole or in part on external digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or other cyptographically secured or unsecured assets possessed or accessible by the user of the article of footwear customization kit 100. The ownership of or authorization for access to such external digital assets may be recorded in or made accessible from a blockchain, third party database, or native digital media accessible by the user. In various examples, such external digital assets may be translated to patterns, logos, or any aspect of the design or appearance of digital items within or included by the external digital asset. An example of an external digital asset may be described in U.S. Pat. No. 10,505,726, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING CRYPTOGRAPHICALLY SECURED DIGITAL ASSETS, Andon et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
It is to be recognized and understood that the article of footwear customization kit 100 may be utilized in a variety of circumstances to receive information from outside sources, supplement activities done or being done by a user, and/or integrate into other digital apparel or systems. Such uses may include, but are not limited to, circumstances included in: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0157844, MOTION-BASED MEDIA CREATION, Andon; U.S. Pat. No. 10,726,435, APPARATUS, SYSTEM, AND METHOD FOR TARGET SEARCH AND USING GEOCACHING, Andon et al.; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0154556, APPAREL BASED DYNAMIC MOVEMENT SCORING, Andon; U.S. Pat. No. 11,122,852, INTELLIGENT ELECTRONIC FOOTWEAR AND LOGIC FOR NAVIATION ASSISTANCE BY AUTOMATED TACTILE, AUDIO, AND VISUAL FEEDBACK, Andon et al.; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2020/0375269, ADAPTIVE SUPPORT APPAREL SYSTEMS AND METHODS, Andon et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0174378, DIGITAL FINGERPRINTING, Rahimizad et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 10,667,566, APPAREL WITH PRESSURE SENSOR CONTROL, Alipour et al.; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0116915, AUTOLACING FOOTWEAR SYSTEM WITH PRESET USER PROFILES, Andon et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 11,019,931, SPORT CHAIR WITH GAME INTEGRATION, Andon et al., all of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. As a result, the article of footwear customization kit 100 may unlock metaverse or video game capabilities for articles of footwear that are not otherwise configured for metaverse or video game compatibility.
In the retracted condition as illustrated in
In one implementation, the network environment includes at least one server 1010 hosting a website or an application that the user may visit to access the article of footwear customization kit 100 and/or other network components. The server 1010 may be a single server, a plurality of servers with each such server being a physical server or a virtual machine, or a collection of both physical servers and virtual machines. In another implementation, a cloud hosts one or more components of the network environment. The user devices 1000, 1002, 1004, the server 1010, and other resources connected to the network 1006 may access one or more other servers to access to one or more websites, applications, web services interfaces, storage devices, computing devices, or the like that are used for article of footwear customization and content development, acquisition, and customization. The server 1010 may also host a search engine that the article of footwear customization kit 100 uses for accessing, searching for, executing, and modifying content, including skins, as described herein. Moreover, while a networked environment is described herein, it is noted that a decentralized network system may be used in addition to or instead of the centralized network described in
The computer system 1100 may be a computing system capable of executing a computer program product to execute a computer process. Data and program files may be input to the computer system 1100, which reads the files and executes the programs therein. Some of the elements of the computer system 1100 include one or more hardware processors 1102, one or more data storage devices 1104, one or more memory devices 1106, and/or one or more ports 1108, 1110. Additionally, other elements that will be recognized by those skilled in the art may be included in the computing system 1100. Various elements of the computer system 1100 may communicate with one another by way of one or more communication buses, point-to-point communication paths, or other communication mechanism.
The processor 1102 may include, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a digital signal processor (DSP), and/or one or more internal levels of cache. There may be one or more processors 1102, such that the processor 1102 comprises a single central-processing unit, or a plurality of processing units capable of executing instructions and performing operations in parallel with each other, commonly referred to as a parallel processing environment.
The computer system 1100 may be a conventional computer, a distributed computer, or any other type of computer, such as one or more external computers made available via a cloud computing architecture. The presently described technology is optionally implemented in software stored on the data stored device(s) 1104, stored on the memory device(s) 1106, and/or communicated via one or more of the ports 1108, 1110, thereby transforming the computer system 1100 to a special purpose machine for implementing the operations described herein. Examples of the computer system 1100 include personal computers, terminals, workstations, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, personal computers, multimedia consoles, gaming consoles, set top boxes, and the like.
The one or more data storage devices 1104 may include any non-volatile data storage device capable of storing data generated or employed within the computing system 1100, such as computer executable instructions for performing a computer process, which may include instructions of both application programs and an operating system (OS) that manages the various components of the computing system 1100. The data storage devices 1104 may include, without limitation, magnetic disk drives, optical disk drives, solid state drives (SSDs), flash drives, and the like. The data storage devices 1104 may include removable data storage media, non-removable data storage media, and/or external storage devices made available via a wired or wireless network architecture with such computer program products, including one or more database management products, web server products, application server products, and/or other additional software components. Examples of removable data storage media include Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM), Digital Versatile Disc Read-Only Memory (DVD-ROM), magneto-optical disks, flash drives, and the like. Examples of non-removable data storage media include internal magnetic hard disks, SSDs, and the like. The one or more memory devices 1106 may include volatile memory (e.g., dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), etc.) and/or non-volatile memory (e.g., read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, etc.).
Computer program products containing mechanisms to effectuate the systems and methods in accordance with the presently described technology may reside in the data storage devices 1104 and/or the memory devices 1106, which may be referred to as machine-readable media. It will be appreciated that machine-readable media may include any tangible non-transitory medium that is capable of storing or encoding instructions to perform any one or more of the operations of the present disclosure for execution by a machine or that is capable of storing or encoding data structures and/or modules utilized by or associated with such instructions. Machine-readable media may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more executable instructions or data structures.
In some implementations, the computer system 1100 includes one or more ports, such as an input/output (I/O) port 1108 and a communication port 1110, for communicating with other computing, network, or vehicle devices. It will be appreciated that the ports 1108, 1110 may be combined or separate and that more or fewer ports may be included in the computer system 1100.
The I/O port 1108 may be connected to an I/O device, or other device, by which information is input to or output from the computing system 1100. Such I/O devices may include, without limitation, one or more input devices, output devices, and/or environment transducer devices.
In one implementation, the input devices convert a human-generated signal, such as, human voice, physical movement, physical touch or pressure, and/or the like, into electrical signals as input data into the computing system 1100 via the I/O port 1108. Similarly, the output devices may convert electrical signals received from computing system 1100 via the I/O port 1108 into signals that may be sensed as output by a human, such as sound, light, and/or touch. The input device may be an alphanumeric input device, including alphanumeric and other keys for communicating information and/or command selections to the processor 1102 via the I/O port 1108. The input device may be another type of user input device including, but not limited to: direction and selection control devices, such as a mouse, a trackball, cursor direction keys, a joystick, and/or a wheel; one or more sensors, such as a camera, a microphone, a positional sensor, an orientation sensor, a gravitational sensor, an inertial sensor, and/or an accelerometer; and/or a touch-sensitive display screen (“touchscreen”). The output devices may include, without limitation, a display, a touchscreen, a speaker, a tactile and/or haptic output device, and/or the like. In some implementations, the input device and the output device may be the same device, for example, in the case of a touchscreen.
The environment transducer devices convert one form of energy or signal into another for input into or output from the computing system 1100 via the I/O port 1108. For example, an electrical signal generated within the computing system 1100 may be converted to another type of signal, and/or vice-versa. In one implementation, the environment transducer devices sense characteristics or aspects of an environment local to or remote from the computing device 1100, such as, light, sound, temperature, pressure, magnetic field, electric field, chemical properties, physical movement, orientation, acceleration, gravity, and/or the like. Further, the environment transducer devices may generate signals to impose some effect on the environment either local to or remote from the example computing device 1100, such as, physical movement of some object (e.g., a mechanical actuator), heating or cooling of a substance, adding a chemical substance, and/or the like.
In one implementation, a communication port 1110 is connected to a network by way of which the computer system 1100 may receive network data useful in executing the methods and systems set out herein as well as transmitting information and network configuration changes determined thereby. Stated differently, the communication port 1110 connects the computer system 1100 to one or more communication interface devices configured to transmit and/or receive information between the computing system 1100 and other devices by way of one or more wired or wireless communication networks or connections. Examples of such networks or connections include, without limitation, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth@, Near Field Communication (NFC), Long-Term Evolution (LTE), and so on. One or more such communication interface devices may be utilized via the communication port 1110 to communicate one or more other machines, either directly over a point-to-point communication path, over a wide area network (WAN) (e.g., the Internet), over a local area network (LAN), over a cellular (e.g., third generation (3G) or fourth generation (4G)) network, or over another communication means. Further, the communication port 1110 may communicate with an antenna or other link for electromagnetic signal transmission and/or reception.
In an example implementation, skins, article of footwear customization operations, content, and software and other modules and services may be embodied by instructions stored on the data storage devices 1104 and/or the memory devices 1106 and executed by the processor 11011. The computer system 1100 may be integrated with or otherwise form part of various components of the network environment 1100.
The computing system 1100 is but one possible example of a computing system that may employ or be configured in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure. It will be appreciated that other non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions for implementing the presently disclosed technology on a computing system may be utilized.
In the present disclosure, the methods disclosed may be implemented as sets of instructions or software readable by a device. Further, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods disclosed are instances of example approaches. Based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the method can be rearranged while remaining within the disclosed subject matter. The accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in a sample order, and are not necessarily meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented.
The described disclosure may be provided as a computer program product, or software, that may include a non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which may be used to program a computer system (or other electronic devices) to perform a process according to the present disclosure. A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing information in a form (e.g., software, processing application) readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). The machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, magnetic storage medium, optical storage medium; magneto-optical storage medium, read only memory (ROM); random access memory (RAM); erasable programmable memory (e.g., EPROM and EEPROM); flash memory; or other types of medium suitable for storing electronic instructions.
While the present disclosure has been described with reference to various implementations, it will be understood that these implementations are illustrative and that the scope of the present disclosure is not limited to them. Many variations, modifications, additions, and improvements are possible. More generally, embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure have been described in the context of particular implementations. Functionality may be separated or combined in blocks differently in various embodiments of the disclosure or described with different terminology. These and other variations, modifications, additions, and improvements may fall within the scope of the disclosure as defined in the claims that follow.
Based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods described herein can be rearranged while remaining within the disclosed subject matter. Any accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in a sample order and are not necessarily meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented.
It is believed that the present disclosure and many of its attendant advantages will be understood by the foregoing description, and it will be apparent that various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the components without departing from the disclosed subject matter or without sacrificing all of its material advantages. The form described is merely explanatory, and it is the intention of the following claims to encompass and include such changes.
The above specification, examples, and data provide a complete description of the structure and use of example implementations of the invention. Various modifications and additions can be made to the exemplary implementations discussed without departing from the spirit and scope of the presently disclosed technology. For example, while the implementations described above refer to particular features, the scope of this disclosure also includes implementations having different combinations of features and implementations that do not include all of the described features. Accordingly, the scope of the presently disclosed technology is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications, and variations together with all equivalents thereof.
This application is a continuation of and claims the benefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/134,141, filed Jan. 5, 2021, the content of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63134141 | Jan 2021 | US |
