There isn’t a lot of mojo left from Reebok’s heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Adidas took over the company’s NBA sponsorship when it bought the brand in 2006. Nike outbid it for the right to make NFL uniforms in 2010. And these days, Shaquille O’Neal, former Reebok pitchman extraordinaire, is only an all-star on Twitter.
But deep within Reebok’s stately and snowbound headquarters just south of Boston sits a trove of patents for inflatable shoes—a feat of engineering (and savvy legal work) that no other company, including Nike, has been able to fully crack.
