Universal Sole

Abstract

Universal sole designed to help a user adapt his walking or running gait to the surface over which he is moving or to the peculiarities of his individual leg / foot System by individually adjusting the hardness and thickness of several areas of the sole. Each area consists of one or more layers of a flat coil of elastic extensible airtight and optionally reinforced rubber tube which may be flattened or inflated beyond its nominal diameter as a function of the pressure introduced by the action, as the user walks, of a small pump located inside the sole underneath the user's heel and adjustments and isolations performed manually with a System of valves built into the thickness of the sole. The coils, the valve System and the pumping System are either located and bonded between layers of foam containing the impression of the coils and filling the spaces between laces or placed in a mould or in a sole in the shape of a boat, a filling material then being introduced to fill the empty spaces. The resulting soles or sole elements can be used on ail kinds of shoes.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]This invention relates to soles for shoes and concerns a device designed to help the walker adapt his / her walking or running to the type of ground encountered or to the particularities of his / her leg / feet system. The ground's characteristics refer to its hardness, its forward or descending, right or left incline. The leg / feet system characteristics refer to leg shape such as bow legs, a stance to correct, or joint or muscle pain to alleviate or stimulate.[0002]The invention also applies to the method of manufacturing elements of the sole.BACKGROUND ART[0003]This kind of situation is usually dealt with by having different pairs of shoes with soles of various degrees of stiffness / thickness and even orthopedic soles in extreme cases.[0004]The major drawback of existing solutions is the need for a different pair of shoes to deal with each situation and that can't adjust to the various kinds of ground and circumstances encountered during an outing.[0005]Although it i...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013]The device stated in this invention provides solutions to the above stated drawbacks, it consists of inserting a universal sole under the shoe be it a regular town, orthopedic, athletic or hiking shoe and helps the wearer adapt his / her walking or running to the type of ground encountered or to the particularities of his / her leg / feet system.

[0014]It consists of, generally and for each shoe, a sole made of flat serpentine coils made of tubes or elastic pipes, extendable and air tight, and each one limiting a tight zone or pocket, defined by its location in front or back and left or right sides of the foot each coil with a plugged extremity, being filled independently with its quantity and pressure of air, by transfers from the outside toward the coil, from the coil toward the outside, and from one coil to another, according to multiple combinations controlled by a valve system, connecting pipes, a manifold, a vent and a pumping system with possible protection from over-pressure, the whole system being controlled manually. For example, there could be 4 such zones: at the front right and left front of the sole, the right back and the left back near the heel. These transfers are useful because they adjust the height and the global sturdiness of the sole to ensure its comfort, its bounce or shock absorption according to the activity of the wearer, to compensate a difference in the length of the individual's legs; and because they adjust the height of each zone in relation to the others, in a right and left axis to walk on the shoulder of a road, to alleviate and stimulate the knee joints, to rehabilitate or correct bone deformations, or in a front and back axis to let rest or activate frontal or back muscles when climbing or descending. It can also boost athletic performance by reacting to different sorts of impulsions.

[0015]These controls and adjustments will be implemented according to problems encountered by the wearer and the abilities of the system operator who is the wearer him / herself, a coach or a doctor. Moreover, these adjustments will made seldom in the case of orthopedic corrections or frequently, up to many times per hour, for an athlete covering different types of ground or different activities. The durability of these adjustments is made possible by the effective air tightness of the coils and of the valve systems. In particular, a simple configuration of the pumping system consists of a connecting nozzle linked to the manifold via a valve fitted in the thickness of the sole, this nozzle being temporanly connected to the flexible pipe of an outside air pump for the pumping operation. This pump is therefore independent of the sole and for example can be a manual piston pump of an electrical compressor or any other compressed air production unit A mini pump model can be manufactured and sold with the shoes without too much extra cost; the pump can even be fitted with a pressure gauge when used by an orthopedist or other professionals taking care of multiple users.

Problems solved by technology

The major drawback of existing solutions is the need for a different pair of shoes to deal with each situation and that can't adjust to the various kinds of ground and circumstances encountered during an outing.

Although it is easy to find corrective shoes resembling regular town shoes, it is not easy to find readymade and affordable corrective shoes for sports.

Especially concerning sports, manufacturers offer models adapted specifically to each athletic discipline or type of ground, with the shoes being designed for optimal performance and not adapted to the specificity of the individual using them.

These models address a particular market and call on advanced technologies which are relatively expensive.

In the preceding inventions, there are problems linked to production costs, to changes in the characteristics of the sole over time, to the need to keep replacement inserts in stock for the mechanical systems, to bursting or rupturing in the soldering, to a lack of stability in the horizontal plane, sideways front-to-back or diagonally, due to the lack of stiffness of the air pockets as well as the bloating of the pockets' central zones and the twisting of the wearer's ankles.

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