Additive manufactured tongue for skate boot

Abstract

A skate tongue for a skate boot is formed by additive manufacturing. The tongue has a body comprising a lattice structure having a plurality of different lattice configurations so as to collectively occupy a majority of an internal volume of the tongue body. Different regions within the tongue body may have lattice configurations that differ from one another by one or more of lattice pattern, cell size, density, and beam diameter such that the performance characteristics of the tongue body vary in one or more of toughness, strength, durability, density, porosity, flexibility, weight, impact resistance, and heat dissipation. The additive manufacturing process allows the skate tongue to be readily customized according to user selections related to desired performance characteristics and/or personalized three dimensional indicia.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.