Should Puma be required to share its super shoe technology?

Adidas, Puma and Asics making amazing shoes and leading the way but most Americans won't be able to afford them due to tariffs.

Utter panic on these boards that people will be stuck with poor quality, outdated technology from Nike!

Actually, from 36mm to 40mm is an 11.11% gain.

Yes

What you wrote is a lie. I don't recall ever saying that and I asked Jonathan Gault, who basically has a photographic memory, if I did it and he said he didn't remember it as well.

What I said was, WA can't allow a shoe that was clearly in violation of the IAAF Rule IAAF Rule 143.2 to be out there for only one company. I never said they need to share the technology. I said they just needed to let athletes with other sponsors buy the shoes. And WA agreed with me as for a while they required the shoe to be commercially available.

IAAF Rule 143.2:
Athletes may compete barefoot or with footwear on one or both feet. the purpose of shoes for competition is to give protection and stability to the feet and a firm grip on the ground. Such shoes, however, must not be constructed so as to give an athlete any unfair additional assistance, including by the incorporation of any technology which will give the wearer any unfair advantage.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/01/by-wearing-vaporfly-prototypes-eliud-kipchoge-galen-rupp-shalane-flanagan-are-all-guilty-of-mechanical-doping-in-2016-will-anything-be-done-about-it/

Rojo,

Do you know the difference between a lie and an incorrect statement?

Yep, that's why the term "about" was used. Have a good day chump.

As someone who appears to be DRUNK often and rambles a TON on your podcast and message board (where your own posts get deleted) do you think it's possible that you said something along these lines and then forgot?

Is this a softball question?

Puma's technology isn't illegal any more than Nike's is. No government is going to interfere in private enterprise technology that doesn't affect society at large. Running shoe technology doesn't qualify.

I said that a government COULD possibly force a company to divulge its patents. I did not say that I thought they would. On the other hand, governing bodies of various sports have occasionally outlawed technological innovations. There's nothing illegal about any of the current shoe technology but that would not prevent World Athletics from banning it. Not that they will.

For the love of god... why are people with no understanding of patents so opinionated about patents? What the hell do you mean divulge? By definition, a patent already forces its owner to "divulge" (disclose) the invention. Disclosure is a necessity to patent something. How the hell could someone know what would or wouldn't violate someone else's patent if the specifics of the invention aren't disclosed? Patents literally incentivise inventors to publicly disclose new inventions in exchange for the benefit of 20 years worth of protected right to exclude others from making this invention themselves.

World Athletics is within their rights to ban a shoe that is unavailable to the public (prototypes), as that generates an unfair advantage. However, a shoe that is publicly sold is not an unfair advantage. Don't think your Nike shoes are as good as Puma? It's pretty damn simple: don't sign a contract that forces you to run in Nike shoes. Except in the case of unavailable prototypes that are genuinely better than the best on the market, there's no lack of fairness.

Looks like Nike is working on something similar with a plate beyond the toebox for the AF4 Proto.

Metal and graphite baseball bats offer competitve edges over wooden ones. Major League Baseball doesn't allow their players to use them. No company that makes bats needs to disclose any trade secrets but if they want MLB players using their bats the bats have to conform to MLB's rules. I don't know if that stifles innovation or not. I kind of doubt it because they can still sell their bats to high school and college players, Little Leagues, and similar folks.

I don't see any need to force a shoe company to disclose any secrets that give them a competitive edge and I kind of like that someone is beating Nike at their own game. But I think the sport should control what types of shoes you can use in major competitions to nullify that competitive edge being given to competitiors using a particular shoe, as MLB does with bats. Again, the rules don't allow competitors to race in shoes that aid performance. It seems like those rules are ignored. Could enforcing those rules stifle innovation on the part of shoe companies? I kind of doubt it because the masses of people who run road races will still be able to use those shoes even if the people winning and placing in those races can't just as most other baseball players can use metal or graphite bats even if MLB players can't. But if it does stifle innovation who cares? We're not talking about innovation that will cure diseases or power cities without generating carbon emissions.

Uh, oh, looks like bouncy shoes are in violation of the iaaf rule.

Deapite rrojo’s claim in the start of the thread, it’s doubtful anyone thinks Gault has a near photographic memory after some of the gaffes we’ve seen. That’s not an insult, just observation. Rojo needs to relax.

you have literally no credibility.