Each year, World Intellectual Property Day provides an opportunity to celebrate the role that intellectual property (IP) rights play in encouraging innovation and creativity. This year’s theme, "IP and Sports: Ready, Set, Innovate," demonstrates the USPTO's commitment to bolstering the American IP protection system and highlights the creators, inventors, and entrepreneurs whose passion and ideas drive the future of sports and energize the United States economy through their various forms of IP.
From groundbreaking innovations in protective gear to exciting new ways to enjoy a big game, it's hard to deny that sports and IP go hand-in-hand. Let's take a look at some sports-related trademarks and patents as well as some inventors that changed the game.
Fielder’s glove
- Issue date: August 22, 1922
- Patent No.: 1,426,824
Inventor: William Doak
Inventor William Doak had firsthand experience with baseball gloves – he was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. Doak’s glove connected the thumb and index finger, which he said would create a natural pocket for the ball. The glove was manufactured by Rawlings Sporting Goods and was so successful, it remains in use today.
Method of manufacturing balls
- Issue date: January 21, 1841
- Patent No.: 1,939
- Inventor: E.M. Chaffee
Edwin Chaffee wanted to invent a new method of manufacturing balls “such as boys use in their games.” In fact, he put that right in his patent. Some early balls were made with animal skins – or even bladders – but the best ones were rubber. This material was easily inflatable and bounced well. Chaffee’s invention used a natural rubber called “caoutchouc.” He chopped it in very small pieces and pressed it into a mold.
Convertible skate
- Issue date: April 22, 1879
- Patent No.: 214,563
- Inventor: T.T.H. Harwood
Whether on ice or pavement, skating is fun. Inventor Hunter Harwood thought so, too. In 1879, he received a patent for a convertible ice or roller skate. He wanted his invention to be a less expensive option for children’s skates. It had a detachable skate-runner that could be swapped out based on the skating surface.
Bonus fact: Most people skated on ponds and lakes at this time, including in New York City. The lake in Central Park was originally labeled on the park plans as a “skating pond.” The park opened in 1876.
Basketball goal
- Issue date: May 25, 1909
- Patent No.: 922,630
- Inventor: Milton Reach
Basketball had a humble start. When the game was first invented in 1891, players threw a soccer ball into a fruit basket to score points. They had to pause the game to grab a ladder and get the ball out. To fix this, they started cutting the bottoms out of the baskets. Patents for hoops, nets, and backboards soon followed. This invention by Milton Reach securely held the basket to a wall.
Football
- Issue date: October 27, 1925
- Patent No.: 1,559,117
- Inventor: John Maynard
The National Football League was founded in 1920, but the sport would undergo a lot of changes before it became what it is today. Even the footballs themselves changed. Very early footballs were rounder and shaped like plums. Some clubs used white footballs, which were easier to see at night. In patents like John Maynard's, you can see the now familiar shape start to take hold. His football contained stitching that helped players grip the ball in wet conditions.
Ice rink resurfacing machine
- Issue date: June 23, 1953
- Patent No.: 2,642,679
- Inventor: Frank Zamboni
Frank Zamboni and his brothers started out selling block ice. In 1940, they opened an indoor ice rink. Their business was successful, but it was a lot of work to keep the ice smooth, so Zamboni invented a machine that would do it for them. The Zamboni cut down the time it took to smooth the ice from an hour-and-a-half to 15 minutes.
Inventor George Grant, who was Black, contributed to the game with his improvement to the golf tee. His tee could have been used on a course where he was unable to play.
Impact-absorbing apparatus
- Issue date: October 21, 2014
- Patent No.: 8,863,320
- Inventor: Maurice Kelly et al.
Contact sports like football can be dangerous for players. Helmets protect players’ heads from injury during collisions. And like a lot of sporting equipment, helmets have improved a lot over the years. Early helmets were made of leather and offered little real protection. Faceguards helped, as did harder materials like plastic. This invention from 2014 is for a pad that helps absorb and disperse energy from a hit.
Bonus fact: Energy doesn’t go away when it hits something. Ask a science teacher or STEM expert why it’s better to spread that energy out instead of focusing it in one spot.
PGA
- Goods and services: Professional golf competitions
- First use year: 1916
- View trademark registration
In January of 1916, a group of golfers had lunch in New York City. The idea for the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) was born by the time they finished their meal.
Today, the PGA has almost 30,000 members. Their goals are to get more people interested in golf and maintain the standards of the sport. The organization has tournaments, a golf club, and an education center.
Lombardi Trophy
- Goods and services: Award
- First use year: 1974
- View trademark registration
The Lombardi Trophy is one example of registering a trademark in the shape of something. This trophy is named after Vince Lombardi, who coached the Green Bay Packers in the first ever Super Bowl in 1967. (The Packers won that game against the Kansas City Chiefs.) Today, the Lombardi Trophy is presented to the winning team in every championship game. Next time you watch the Super Bowl, you could count how many times you spot the trophy’s iconic shape.
Golf tee
- Issue date: December 12, 1899
- Patent No.: 638,920
- Inventor: George Grant
Before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, some recreation facilities were segregated by race. This included golf courses. Many courses were available to white players only, even as the sport increased in popularity for African Americans.
Wilson
- Goods and services: Sporting goods
- First use year: 1917
- View trademark registration
The Wilson logo is one of the most recognizable in sporting goods today. Yet the company can trace its start to a very different industry – meat packing. They started making tennis racket strings out of animal by-products and soon expanded to other sporting goods. A few years later, the company partnered with the Chicago Cubs and sales really took off. They’ve been in business for over a century.
Chuck Taylor
- Goods and services: Shoes
- First use year: 1934
- View trademark registration
Basketball player Chuck Taylor felt strongly about having high-quality, supportive shoes – so strongly, in fact, that he became the face of Converse as their celebrity salesman. In 1931, Taylor told the company his ideas for a shoe with better ankle support and ended up with a job. Converse took his suggestions and even added his signature to their now-famous line of shoes.
Bonus fact: From 1936 to 1968, Converse All-Stars were the official shoe of the Olympic games.
Inventor: Shawn Springs
- Birthdate: March 11, 1975
- Birthplace: Williamsburg, Virginia
- Known for: Crash Cloud technology
During his career as an NFL cornerback, Shawn Springs noticed something about his helmet. It hadn’t changed much since his father played football two decades prior. His firsthand experiences with concussions from the game and his natural curiosity and drive to solve problems led him to a post-football career that made the game better.
After a conversation with a friend about padding used in children’s car seats to prevent injury during a crash, Springs started his company, Windpact. His goal was to create a better helmet with padding that would disperse the impact of a hit. In 2014, he co-patented his Crash Cloud technology, a combination of foam and controlled air. His company expanded to making different sporting equipment for women’s lacrosse and baseball catchers’ masks, and even helmets for soldiers in the military.
Springs cites many of the skills he learned while playing the game for his success later on. This includes his ability to get along with teammates, work towards goals, and having self-confidence.
Read more in the Journeys of Innovation story on Shawn Springs.
Inventor: Rory Cooper
- Birthdate: November 9, 1959
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
- Known for: Wheelchair technology
In 2024, Rory Cooper was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. These honors were well-deserved. Cooper’s work in wheelchair technology has made life safer for millions of Americans living with disabilities, allowing them to lead active and independent lives.
Cooper has firsthand experience with both solving problems and the need for high quality assistive devices. He enlisted in the United States Army as a young man, and a bicycle accident while he was serving in Germany left him paralyzed from the waist down. Finding his 80-pound wheelchair too heavy for his active lifestyle, Cooper designed a lightweight chair in his parents’ car repair shop. This set Cooper on a pathway of invention.
Throughout his career, Cooper designed lightweight wheelchairs that help prevent injury and can travel over rough terrain. He also invented a digital joystick that can control the speed and direction of a wheelchair for users with severe disabilities. Cooper remains a dedicated athlete. He has won more than 200 medals in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games and was a bronze medalist in the 4x400 meter wheelchair rally in the 1988 Paralympic Games.
Read more in the Journeys of Innovation story on Rory Cooper.
Inventor: Robert Cade
- Birthdate: September 26, 1927
- Birthplace: San Antonio, Texas
- Known for: Gatorade
Robert Cade was interested in sports at a young age. He ran the mile in just 4 minutes and 20 seconds while in high school. He went on to make a lasting contribution to the field of athletics… just not as an athlete himself.
After serving in the Navy, Cade went to medical school. He eventually got a job as a professor of internal medicine at the University of Florida, where he spotted an interesting pattern in his patients. Members of the university’s football team, the Florida Gators, would end up in the infirmary with dehydration. The Florida heat would cause them to lose pounds of water weight during practice, and they couldn’t get fluid fast enough.
Cade and his research team set out to solve this problem with a special drink that replenished electrolytes, the minerals the body needs to function properly. We now call this Gatorade. The drink not only helped keep the players healthy – it improved their performance.
Read more in the Journeys of Innovation story on Robert Cade.
From cutting-edge equipment and game-changing technologies to inspiring brands and designs, IP rights power a dynamic sports culture that inspires and connects people everywhere. Consider the spectacle of a big football game: scoreboards and digital displays like those produced by Daktronics help hype up the crowd. Stan Honey’s virtual yellow first-and-10 line lets viewers spot a first-down run as it’s happening. If you love feeling like you’re in the huddle with the players, you have Garrett Brown’s SkyCam to thank; this patented camera system allows for aerial views of all the action. This year's World IP Day celebrates all of these inventions and aims to encourage the next generation of sports innovators to continue creating, ensuring that the fun and excitement last for years to come.
Credits
Story by Rebekah Oakes, Jake Wade, and Katherine Fakhri. Contributions by Kayla Williams and Jonathan Make.