Boots – shoes – and leggings – Boots and shoes – Having particular heel
Reexamination Certificate
2002-07-18
2003-09-23
Patterson, M. D. (Department: 3728)
Boots, shoes, and leggings
Boots and shoes
Having particular heel
C036S028000, C036S03500R, C036S069000, C036S142000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06622401
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The American Podiatric Medical Association published a statistical document in 2001 relating that 18,035,600 U.S. residents over 18 were treated by physicians for heel pain in 2000, with another 20,619,200 self treated in the same year.
The present invention relates to a modified oxford shoe designed specifically for use by those experiencing chronic or acute foot pain. Precisely for therapeutic relief for those experiencing heel pain, sometimes disabling, which can occur in the back, sides and bottom of the heel with other symptoms of inflammation, redness, swelling and heat. Practitioners in the field recognize that pressures on the heel can cause pain to an otherwise uninjured heel, and that pressures on an injured heel tend to aggravate the inflammation while recovering thus extending the healing time.
Secondarily, the modified oxford shoe provides a means of correcting biomechanical imbalance such as excessive pronation which may cause chronic heel pain and may also contribute to injury to the knee, hip and lower back.
The primary purpose of shoes is to protect the foot from injury. The sole protects the bottom of the foot and the upper protects the body of the foot. Shoe designers, through their ingenuity and tenacity, have developed excellent concepts and designs for protective sports shoes. Some of these, the padded tongue, the padded collar and resilient midsole have trickled down to the walking shoe which virtually every man, woman, and child wear for work, school or leisure—because they are comfortable.
There are occasions, however, that the comfort of these shoes is not sufficient for those incurring heel pain through injuries, heel spurs, malformations or mild to severe obesity which prompts the subject invention.
The function of a conventional counter, capped by a collar, is to hold the foot into the body of the shoe and to cover the heel of the wearer. The counter of an oxford shoe, the basic design of a walking shoe, is a stiffened piece of leather, cotton or synthetic material around and attached to the heel of a shoe, formed upward and forward to follow the contour of the wearers heel creating a small encapsulated pocket which does not allow sufficient upward or downward movement of the rear of the wearers heel within the shoe to allow for a satisfactory range of internal cushioning because of friction leading to blisters. Therefore the widely sold resilient plastic heel inserts are thin and flimsy resulting in a minuscule level of cushioning, and when compressed present the same unyielding face as the underlying mass.
To attain more cushioning, it is not unusual for the buyers of the inserts to double up on these cushions in the hope of better cushioning. This lead to thicker more expensive resilient plastic inserts which have two disadvantages beyond the limited range of cushioning, especially when the wearer is experiencing severe heel pain. These inserts are flat across the beam and taper forward and downward to a point one half inch or so from the front, whereupon they abruptly taper to zero to meet the plane of the insole liner. When weight from the bottom of the heel compresses the insert, the heel forms a cup shaped depression in the top surface of the insert causing stretching of the surface resulting in a stiffening of the surface and resultant inward pressure to the heel by the sides of the depression, however slight. The weight placed by the heel upon the insert does not in any means fully compress the insert and in effect the insert then presents a non-resilient surface to the heel. The remaining height of the insert, regardless of the two tapers, raises the plane of the heel above the plane of the pad of the foot forward of the heel, therefore does not allow proper load sharing of the whole foot causing callousing to occur in the forward part of the foot with resulting additional discomfort to the foot.
Another problem that one with heel pain would encounter with a conventional fixed counter is the patients heel would in fact encounter the counter with any sideward motion of the foot creating pressure resulting in a higher degree of pain.
The corrective devices for adjusting pronation are hard plastic inserts supporting the foot from the heel through the ball. These devices are contoured as the foot should be, not as it is, resulting in substantial discomfort to the wearer. The inserts are supplied with directions acknowledging this fact and advising using these for an hour a day as a start of a progressive program to make the transition to everyday wear. Some of these devices are thicker custom designed, poorly padded and more expensive than those sold to the mass market with generic designs. The buyers of these devices generally try and discard them because of the continuing discomfort.
Utilizing steel springs as heel cushioning devices has been enduring art for many years. Early versions placed the springs in a heel under the sole of a shoe or boot which merely provided cushioning action for a healthy heel from the ground up to the sole of the shoe with hard barriers; sole, insole and leather heel liner as a platform for the wearer's heel. These methods are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos.: 384,634 1888 Martin; 1,094,211 1914 Jenoi 1,099,180 1914 Karacsonyi; 1,098,241 1914 Forray; 1,338,817 1920 De Luca; 2,535,102 1950 Taylor; and 2,669,038 1954 De Werth. Later with the advent of sports shoes the focus turned to shock absorption, stability and energy return through spring related devices as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos.: 5,544,431 1966 Dixon; 5,649,374 1997 Chou; 5,651,196 1997 Hsieh; 5,729,916 1998 Vorobiev; 5,743,028 1998 Lombardino; 5,832,629, 1998 Wen; 6,006,449 1999 Orlowski; and 6,055,747 2000 Lombardino.
While the concepts and designs of these devices or shoes may be effective for their intended uses, they all contain cushioning obstructions, barriers and impedences which negate their performance when attempting to eliminate pressure, or reduce the sense of impression caused by compression to an injured heel.
Specifically, this representative group has disclosed no suitable, by design or implication, direct adjustable cushioning extending unimpededly from the patients heel to the floor for this purpose.
Properly designed and manufactured oxford shoes are available in various lengths and widths to provide a comfortable supportive fit. There is no provision for inserts which change the working dimensions of the shoe. This demands the most cautious discretion in making internal changes to a shoe unless other compensating adjustments are made to the shoe.
There are those practitioners who feel that the platform for the pad of a foot should not be flat as generally manufactured. Since the heel pad is lower in its static state than the adjoining foot pad, they reason that the platform of a shoe should have a depression in the heel to conform with this. The fact that this may be controversial and difficult to engineer appears to be the basis for the flat platform existing in most shoes.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The objects of the present invention are: To provide a shoe which immediately delivers vertical and horizontal heel pressure diminishment for those experiencing acute or chronic heel pain;
To provide a series of heel cushioning, with no intervening barriers or other impedences, extending from the patients heel to the floor;
To provide a vertical heel pad cushioning series independent of any lateral or lengthwise forces upon which the patients heel directly rests, and exerts downward pressure upon to receive buoyantly elastic cushioning;
To provide a cushioning element which spreads the downward pressure from the patients heel over a larger area of buoyantly elastic cushioning springs;
To provide a variety of calibrated compression springs of various cushioning resistance for selection by the patient determined by the patients weight and degree of buoyantly elastic cushioning desired;
To provide ease of access to the calibrated springs for periodic patient changing;
To provide a secondary cushioning series,
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