US 5,899,038 · Granted 1999-05-04
The Modular Sports Floor That Bounces Back Perfectly Everywhere
Imagine a floor tile made from engineered wood with a tough plastic coating on top, studded underneath with rubber feet that cushion your steps. The genius part: those feet are spaced out in a precise pattern so the entire floor feels equally springy and comfortable no matter where you walk, jump, or land.
The plain-English version
What it protects
What's protected here is the structure of a modular flooring system where individual tiles combine a dense wood core with a laminate surface layer and strategically positioned support feet underneath. The claim covers the specific arrangement and resilience characteristics of those feet—their spacing, material properties, and distribution pattern—that work together to create uniform shock absorption across the whole floor. Anyone making a competing modular floor with this same foot-placement logic would be infringing.
Why it matters
Sports and performance flooring demands uniform cushioning—you can't have soft spots and hard spots. This patent locks down a manufacturing approach that lets companies like Mondo mass-produce modular tiles that feel identical whether you're standing on tile one or tile fifty, without having to engineer each section separately. That consistency is what lets venues install tournament-grade floors quickly and affordably.
Real-world use
When you bounce a basketball in an indoor gym or do gymnastics on a sprung floor, you're likely benefiting from support-foot engineering like this—the floor gives way evenly under your feet instead of feeling stiff in some places and mushy in others.
Original USPTO abstract
The flooring, preferably made in the form of modules which can be likened approximately to large tiles, is composed essentially of a tread layer comprising a core of high or medium density material (HDF or MDF) with a laminate layer, for example of melamine, applied to at least one of its faces, preferably to the lower face, as well as a plurality of support feet having selectively determined resilience characteristics, the spatial distribution of which in the plane of the flooring gives the flooring itself completely homogeneous mechanical characteristics.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,899,038
- Filing date
- 1997-04-22
- Grant date
- 1999-05-04
- Assignee
- Mondo S.P.A.
- Inventor(s)
- STROPPIANA; FERNANDO
- CPC class
- E04F15/225
Want to file your own patent?
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