Shoe with breakaway portion to mitigate risk of injury
AssigneeBreak Through Sports, PLLC
InventorsRichard Rilling, Alan Pitas
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A shoe to mitigate the risk of an ACL tear by decreasing the impact force and preventing a twisting force to occur. A shoe comprising a sole with a toe section and a heel section; and a breakaway portion releasably coupled to the heel section with a release assembly. The release assembly includes an activation region positioned at a posterior end of the shoe. The breakaway heel portion releases from the sole when a threshold force is applied to the activation region. When an athlete lands on their heel in a “position of risk” with the body well behind the foot, the breakaway portion releases from the remainder of the shoe, such that the foot slides forward. Since the foot is not anchored in the ground, the damaging twisting force does not occur.
Claims20
A heel assembly comprising:
- a base;
- a breakaway portion;
- a frangible fastener positioned in a first region, wherein the frangible fastener releasably couples the breakaway portion to the base;
- wherein the heel assembly is movable between an attached configuration and a released configuration;
- wherein the breakaway portion is attached to the base in the attached configuration and wherein the breakaway portion is released from the base in the released configuration;
- wherein the heel assembly moves from the attached configuration to the released configuration in response to application of a threshold force applied to a second region, the second region is posterior the first region;
- and
- a gap positioned in the second region between the breakaway portion and the base when the heel assembly is in the attached configuration;
- a pivot interface between the base and the breakaway portion when the heel assembly is in the attached configuration, wherein the pivot interface is positioned between the first region and the second region.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.