Boots – shoes – and leggings – Boots and shoes – Foot-supporting or foot-conforming feature
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-18
2002-10-22
Kavanaugh, Ted (Department: 3728)
Boots, shoes, and leggings
Boots and shoes
Foot-supporting or foot-conforming feature
C036S028000, C036S031000, C036S03000A
Reexamination Certificate
active
06467197
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to shoes that are put on at the time of daily outing, jogging or exercises, and more particularly to a shoe sole.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, typical jogging shoes comprise a midsole.
The midsole is arranged on top of an outer sole to absorb shocks upon landing. To this end, the midsole is made of a material such as resin sponge (foam) that is excellent in shock absorbing properties and resilience. In order to attain such properties, the hardness of the resin sponge is usually set to a relatively low value.
Any sports shoes provided with a midsole having such a low hardness are apt to undergo a drastic deformation at their arch portions upon walking and running, causing the user to experience fatigue. Thus, some recently developed shoes include a reinforcement device(s) fastened fixedly to the underside of the mid foot portion of the midsole to prevent possible deformations.
FIG. 8
is a bottom plan view of a shoe sole disclosed in Japan Utility Model Registration Pub. No. 2, 544, 047.
In this prior art, reinforcement devices
310
and
311
are disposed at a lateral side
10
and a medial side
11
, respectively, of a shoe sole
300
so as to prevent any planar flexural deformations along the shoe sole face as well as to restrain arches of the arch of the foot from being depressed.
However, the arches of the arch portion are high at the medial side but low at the lateral side. For this reason, if the flexural rigidity of the reinforcement devices
310
and
311
is increased, then the low arch at the lateral side may be subjected to a thrust-up force, with the result that user may have a sense of incongruity.
Likewise, if the flexural rigidity of the reinforcement devices
310
and
311
are reduced, then the high arch at the medial side may be depressed and the user may feel fatigue, and the pronation of the inclining foot toward the medial side may be excessive.
FIG. 9
is a perspective view of a shoe sole disclosed in Japan Patent Laid-open Pub. No. Hei9-47305.
In this prior art, cup-like stabilizers
320
and
321
are disposed on top of a midsole
322
. The stabilizers
320
and
321
are separately arranged at the lateral side
10
and the medial side
11
, respectively, and have different hardness values. However, this prior art employs no structure for supporting the arches of the arch, and hence it can not prevent the medial side arch from being depressed.
FIG. 10
is a top plan view of a shoe sole disclosed in Japan Patent Laid-open Pub. No. Hei5-329005.
In this prior art, the medial side
331
of the rear foot portion and the medial side
332
of the arch portion of the outer sole of the shoe sole are designed to have a higher hardness than the remaining portion
333
of the outer sole. This prior art only addresses the hardness of the outer sole and does not contribute to preventing depression of the arches.
FIG.
11
(
a
) is a top plan view of a midsole disclosed in Japan Patent Pub. No. Sho61-7801, and FIG.
11
(
b
) is a side elevational view of the midsole disclosed in this publication.
This prior art discloses a pronation restricting member
202
disposed at the medial side
11
of the rear foot portion of the midsole
200
, with the pronation restricting member
202
having a higher hardness than that of the midsole body
201
. This prior art does not employ any structure to carry the arches of the arch and does not contribute preventing depression of the arches.
A midsole structure for enhancing the shock absorbing properties is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,372,058;4,741,114; and 5,079,856 and Japan Patent Laid-open Pub. No. Hei5-115306. In these prior art references, the midsole rear foot portion is provided with a concavity that is recessed upward from the bottom face of the midsole. The cross sectional area of the midsole is thus reduced due to the formation of the concavity. By virtue of this, the midsole rear foot portion readily compressively deforms, the deformation absorbing shock which occurs upon landing.
However, easy deformation of the midsole may result in a lowered stability of the shoe sole. For this reason, pronating action tends to become larger after the landing, namely, the action of the foot inclining toward the medial side after the landing brings about overpronation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a major object of the present invention to provide a shoe sole capable of achieving a suppressed pronation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a shoe sole capable of realizing a suppression of planar flexural deformation, a suppression of thrust-up toward the lateral side arch and a suppression of depression of the medial side arch.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a shoe sole capable of fully absorbing shocks upon the landing.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, in order to attain the above objects, the shoe sole comprises an outer sole, a midsole and a reinforcement device made of resin plate.
The outer sole has a tread face and is divided into a forefoot portion and a rear foot portion. The midsole is formed on top of the outer sole over the forefoot portion, an arch portion, and the rear foot portion. The reinforcement device is fixed firmly to the bottom face of the arch portion of the midsole.
The reinforcement device is formed in an arch form at a medial side and a lateral side of a foot between the divided portions of the outer sole. In this aspect, hardness in a medial side portion of a foot of the reinforcement device is established to be higher than that in a lateral side portion of a foot of the reinforcement device. As a result of this, flexural rigidity in the medial side portion of the foot of the reinforcement device is established to be higher than that in the lateral side portion of the foot of the reinforcement device.
As used herein, “reinforcement device made of resin plate” refers to a plate-like or chip-like resin molded into a predetermined arch-shape, or a knit, fabric or paper molded integrally with resin.
“Made of resin plate” means that the thickness of the reinforcement device is not so great, but it restricts by no means the geometry of the reinforcement device.
The reinforcement device is typically firmly secured to the underside of the arch portion of the midsole in an exposed manner, with the front and rear end portions of the reinforcement device being sandwiched between the midsole and the outer sole. However, the reinforcement device, except for the front and rear end portions, may partially or wholly be buried in the midsole as long as it is fixedly secured to the midsole in the vicinity of the underside of the midsole. The reinforcement device is thus firmly secured to the bottom surface side of the midsole, not to the top surface side.
In the present invention, “hardness of the reinforcement device made of resin plate is high” means that Young's modulus (modulus of longitudinal elasticity) of resin making up the reinforcement device is high. The reason this aspect is defined by the hardness is as follows. A higher Young's modulus of a member leads generally to a higher flexural rigidity of the member. In the case of shoes available on the market, it is easier to measure the hardness of an element than to measure the Young's modulus of members making up the reinforcement device. This is the reason that this aspect employs such a way of definition.
The hardness of the reinforcement device made of resin plate of the present invention can be measured by use of, e.g.,a JIS D-type hardness meter (hardness meter having a triangular pyramid-shaped penetrator).
A second aspect of the shoe sole of the present invention comprises an outer sole, a midsole and a reinforcement device made of resin plate. The outer sole has a tread face and is divided into a forefoot portion and a rear foot portion. The midsole is formed on top of the outer sole over the forefoot portion, an arch portion, and the rear foot portion. The reinfo
Isobe Masashi
Mitsui Shigeyuki
Nakabe Noboru
Nishiwaki Tsuyoshi
Asics Corp.
Kavanaugh Ted
Zall Michael
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