US 7,171,331 · Granted 2007-01-30
The Patent That Put a Fitness Tracker Inside Your Shoe
Imagine your shoe could count how far you've run or walked by sensing every footstep. This patent describes putting tiny motion sensors (like accelerometers) inside shoes that talk to your watch or MP3 player to tell you your speed and distance — basically the ancestor of today's fitness trackers and smartwatches.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a shoe-based system that uses embedded motion sensors to measure how fast a person is moving and how far they've traveled, then wirelessly reports that data to a wearable device like a watch or music player. What's protected here is the specific method of placing these sensors inside the shoe itself rather than on the wrist or elsewhere, and the system architecture for collecting and transmitting that movement data.
Why it matters
This patent arrived at an inflection point in wearable fitness technology. In the mid-2000s, the idea of embedding sensors in everyday objects like shoes rather than strapping them to your body was novel. This approach paved the way for modern fitness ecosystems where multiple devices work together — your shoe sensors feed data to your watch, which syncs to your phone. The shoe-as-sensor concept remains relevant today in everything from Nike's sensor-equipped running shoes to mainstream fitness trackers.
Real-world use
When a runner wears shoes with motion sensors that sync to a smartwatch to track their 5K route and pace, they're using the core idea locked down by this patent.
Original USPTO abstract
Methods are disclosed for determining speed or distance traveled of moving persons by utilizing sensors selectively insertable within shoes. Shoe based systems employing sensors (e.g., accelerometers) are disclosed to determine and report (e.g., via a watch or MP3 player) speed and/or distance traveled.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 7,171,331
- Filing date
- 2006-02-21
- Grant date
- 2007-01-30
- Assignee
- Phatrat Technology, Llc
- Inventor(s)
- VOCK CURTIS A., AMSBURY BURL W., EDSTROM ERIC R., HOLME ROBERT MUIR, JONJAK PAUL, LARKIN ADRIAN F., YOUNGS PERRY
- CPC class
- G16Z99/00
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