US 2,009,048,044 · Filed 2007-08-17
How Adidas Turned Your Soccer Ball Into a Coach
Adidas created a system where a smart sports ball and a motion-tracking shoe work together to record every touch, pass, and kick you make. The ball stores data about when and how your shoe contacts it, while wearable monitors track your speed, heart rate, and distance—then send all that info to a device that gives you real-time feedback on your performance.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a complete sports training ecosystem: a motion-enabled ball that records contact events (storing an ID when a tracked shoe touches it), wearable monitors on shoes and body that measure movement metrics like speed and distance, and a central processing device that collects all this data and returns personalized performance feedback to the athlete. What's protected is the integration of these components as a unified training system, not just the individual parts.
Why it matters
This patent represents an early push into connected sports equipment—turning dumb gear into intelligent feedback loops. For Adidas, locking down the architecture of a smart ball paired with tracked footwear meant potential competitive advantage in the digital fitness space. It's the foundation for coaching technology that could help athletes train smarter by capturing objective data about technique, effort, and contact quality that humans can't see.
Real-world use
A soccer player wears Adidas-tracked shoes while practicing with a connected ball; every time their foot strikes the ball, the ball records it, and after practice they see detailed stats on passing accuracy, touch frequency, and running distance on their phone.
Original USPTO abstract
A sports electronic training system with sport ball, and applications thereof, are disclosed. In an embodiment, the system comprises at least one monitor and an electronic processing device for receiving data from the at least one monitor and providing feedback to an individual based on the received data. The monitor can be a motion monitor that measures an individual's performance such as, for example, speed, pace and distance for a runner. Other monitors might include a heart rate monitor, a temperature monitor, an altimeter, et cetera. In an embodiment, a sport ball that includes a motion monitor for monitoring motion of the sport ball stores an identification value received when a shoe that includes a motion monitor contacts the sport ball. The stored identification value serves as a record of the contact.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 2,009,048,044
- Filing date
- 2007-08-17
- Grant date
- Application — not yet granted
- Assignee
- Adidas International Marketing B.V.
- Inventor(s)
- OLESON MARK ARTHUR, DIBENEDETTO CHRISTIAN, TOMLINSON SCOTT, VAN NOY ALLEN W., VATERLAUS AMY JONES, VINCENT STEPHEN MICHAEL
- CPC class
- A63B43/00
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